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AUTHOR: 


HOLMES,  JOHN  HAYNES 


TITLE: 


IS  DEATH  THE  END? 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 


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Holmes,  John  Haynes,  1879-  i-:Ci 

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1.  lit>   and  tl.cjr  rolation  to  tho  facts  and  prol)]cms  of 

picsHit    uunan  ex,Rtonco,  by  John  Ha.7ies  Holmes 

No^^-  ^  ork  and  London,  G.  P.  Putnam's  sons,  1915  "' 

XV,  382  p.     195™.         -$1:50' 

"Important  Looks  referred  to  in  the  text":  p.  379-382. 

1.  Immortality.  i.  Title. 


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Is  Death  the  End? 

Being  a  Statement  of  the  Arguments  for  Immor- 
tality;   a  Justification,  from  the   Standpoint  of 
Modern  Scientific  and  Philosophic  Thought, 
of  the  Immortal  Hope ;  and  a  Consider- 
ation of  the  Conditions  of  Immortality 
and   Their   Relation   to    the    Facts 
and    Problems    of    Present 
Human  Existence 


By 


John  Haynes,  Holme.s 

Minister  of  the  Church *ef  the  liie^SUfi.fNevx^ycCrk*/. 
Author  of    The  Revoluiionarv  Function  of  the   Modern    Church, 

Marriage  hn'j:j^w6rCj^,/elc.   •**-/*•.'•:'•.    • 
•  .  ..  .     , .    ,         '       ».  .     . 

:  •.•.-:  :    : 


•  »  •  ,  • 

•  • •.   .  • 


*  J  • 


•  •    • 

•  •    • 


G,  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

tTbe    f?nlcherbocftcr    prese 

1915 


.>''.:7"^5^/'^i^#%#^^'-t 


^ 


CoPYRICrT,    IQI5 
BY 

JOHN   HAYNES   HOLMES 


THE   RADIANT  MEMORY  OF 

ROBERT  COLLYER 

MY  HONOURED  COLLEAGUE,  BENIGNANT  FRIEND,  BELOVED  FATHER 

IN   THE    SPIRIT 


While  I  must  say  with  the  great  apostle,  '  It  doth  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be,'  I  hold  as  well  to  the  faith  that 
I  shall  pass  out  of  one  room  in  the  many  mansions  into  another* 
and  what  treasure  in  the  heavens  was  mine  here,  will  be  mine' 
there,  while  that  which  is  to  come  will  not  seem  so  much  another 
hfe  as  the  npeness  and  perfecting  of  this  life  that  now  is."— 


Ubc  Iknickerbocker  prcse,  *l<w  Ifforh 


PREFACE 

FN  an  age  when  religion  has  become  intensely 
1  practical,  and  interest  in  the  certainties  of  this 
present  life  has  superseded  interest  in  the  proba- 
bilities or  possibilities  of  the  life  to  come,  it  is 
perhaps  necessary  to  justify  this  treatise  upon  the 
question.  Is  death  the  end?  My  reasons  for 
writing  it  are  definite  and  I  trust  not  wholly 
anachronistic. 


I 


First  of  all,  I  must  make  the  personal  confession 
that,  from  my  earliest  years,  I  have  been  interested 
in  philosophical  and  theological  speculations  of 
every  kind.  Furthermore,  I  have  ever  found  the 
most  fascinating  of  all  such  speculations  that  per- 
taining to  the  idea  of  survival  after  death.  For 
years  I  have  studied  and  meditated  upon  this 
problem,  and  at  last  I  have  come  to  the  point 
where  I  desire  to  express  my  thoughts  and  convic- 
tions.    Hence  this  book ! 

Secondly,  I  must  make  another  confession  to  the 
effect  that  I  feel  within  myself  an  intense  desire  to 


VI 


Preface 


Preface 


Vll 


live  beyond  the  temporal  bounds  of  present  exist- 
ence. So  far  as  I  can  determine,  this  desire  has  its 
origin  in  no  ignoble  pride  in  my  own  personality, 
for  I  am  conscious  of  no  mean  ambition  to  have 
that  personality  as  such  perpetuated.  It  comes 
from  no  instinctive  reaction  from  a  fear  of  the 
end,  for  I  think  I  could  receive  a  proof  of  extinction 
with  equanimity,  although  with  disappointment. 
It  certainly  springs  from  no  yearning  for  the 
resumption  of  personal  relations  which  have  been 
interrupted  by  death,  for  no  one  of  those  nearest 
and  dearest  to  me,  either  friend  or  kinsman,  has  yet 
passed  into  the  unknown.  I  want  to  live  on  and  on, 
simply  because  I  am  sure  that  within  a  narrow  span 
of  seventy  or  eighty  years  I  never  can  learn  all  I 
want  to  learn,  do  all  I  want  to  do,  or  love  all  I  want 
to  love.  I  want  to  survive  after  death,  for  prac- 
tically the  same  reason  that  I  want  to  awake 
tomorrow  morning  after  tonight's  slumber.  This 
life,  like  this  day,  is  too  short  for  the  fulfilment  of 
my  purposes.  I  want  to  live  on,  because  I  w^ant 
to  work  on,  forever! 

Such  is  my  desire.  But  what  chance  is  there 
that  this  desire  will  be  realized.^  Here  is,  for  me 
at  least,  a  very  practical  question.  And  it  is  the 
endeavour  to  answer  this  question  which  in  part 
explains  this  book. 

The  book,  however,  is  intended  more  for  others 
than  for  myself — else  while  it  might  have  been 
written,  it  would  never  have  sought  a  publisher. 
That  there  is  wide-spread  indifference  today  to  this 


whole  problem  of  immortality,  is,  as  Dr.  William 
Osier  has  convincingly  testified,  a  matter  of  com- 
mon observation.^     Perhaps  never  before,  in  the 
history  of  human  thought,  has  indifference  been 
so  general.     And  yet   I  doubt  if  it  is  quite  so 
universally  characteristic  of  the  modern  mind  as 
we  are  sometimes  led  to  believe.     Dr.  Osier  bases 
his  testimony  on  his  experience  at  the  bedsides  of 
the  dying.      I  could  match  this  by  testimony  to 
the  contrary  based  on  my  experience  at  the  grave- 
sides of  the  dead.     If  the  individual  is  indifferent, 
at  the  moment  of  his  own  passing,  he  is  certainly 
not  indifferent  at  the  moment  of  the  passing  of 
another  whom  he  passionately  loves.      Nor  docs 
interest    in  immortality  spring  wholly   from  the 
natural  desire  to  "meet  again."     I  have  found 
plenty  of  indifference;  but  again  and  again  I  have 
found  that  this  indifference  is  only  skin-deep,  so  to 
speak.     It  is  all  mixed  up  with  certain  theological 
presuppositions   about   heaven   and   hell,    golden 
gates  and  brimstone  lakes.     Indifferent  to  these 
childish  imaginings,  people  think  themselves  indif- 
ferent to  the  whole  problem.      But  when  I  have 
pressed  them  upon  the  question,  and  have  described 
to  them  the  immortal  life  in  terms  simply  of  contin- 
ued activity  rather  than  of  quiescent  fulfilment  or 
final  judgment,   I   have  again  and  again  found 
them  quite  as  eager  to  Hve  on  as  I  am.     We  all 
want  to  live—nature's  instinct  of  self-preservation 
IS  only   a    physical   reflection  of    a  deep-rooted 

'  See  Science  and  Immortality,  pages  9-20. 


Vlll 


Preface 


Preface 


IX 


spiritual  impulse— and  this  means  the  desire  for 
immortality ! 

To  confirm  this  desire  in  others  as  well  as  in 
myself,  and  to  transform  it  in  their  hearts,  as  in  my 
own,  from  a  vague  yearning  or  hope  into  a  sure 
conviction,  has  in  large  part  been  my  purpose  in 
the  writing  of  this  book. 

Finally,  beyond  all  the  facts  of  individual  hope 
and  fear,  is  the  fact  of  society  and  its  destiny. 
This  is  the  age  of  the  social  question,  and  therefore 
predominantly  the  age  of  thought  and  action  for 
the  life  that  is  here  and  now.     Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  it  is  just  because  of  my  supreme  interest  in 
the  social  movements  of  our  time,  and  the  stu- 
pendous emancipations  of  the  bodies  and  souls  of 
men  that  are  involved  in  these  movements,  that 
I  feel  a  fervent  interest  in  the  apparently  remote 
problem  of  life  after  death.     To  regard  this  pro- 
blem as  remote,  however,  is  the  very  essence  of 
superficial  thought  and  shallow  feeling.     Nothing 
in  reality  could  be  nearer;  for  not  till  we  come  to 
believe  profoundly  that  every  human  being  is  at 
bottom  an  immortal  soul  can  we  see  the  social 
question  of  our  day  in  its  true  aspect,  and  give  to 
it  its  true  direction.     The  one  greatest  public  need 
of  the  present  moment  is  the  redemption  of  the 
modern  movement  of  social  revolution  from  the 
materialism  which   haunts   it   as   camp-followers 
haunt  an  army.     And  this  can  be  achieved  only 
through  the  establishment  of  the  idea  that  death 
is  not  the  end  of  life. 


II 


The  argument  of  the  book  is  simple  and  plainly 
indicated  in  the  chapter-headings. 
/       Defining  immortality  as  the  survival  of  individ- 
uality (Introduction),  I  have  first  of  all  made  it 
plain,  as  the  basis  of  all  further  argument,  that  the 
question  is  one  which  is  wide-open  for  discussion 
(Chapter  II)— that,  in  spite  of   the  assertion  of 
scientific  materialism  to  the  contrary,  there  is  no 
presumption  against  the  immortal  hope— that,  in 
the  lack  of  all  positive  evidential  knowledge,  there 
IS  no  more  reason  why  we  should  believe  in  mortal- 
ity  than   in  immortality.     The    challenge   for  a 
proof  of  extinction  is  a  fair  retort  to  the  challenge 
for  a  proof  of  survival. 

With  this  all-important  point  made  clear,  I  have 
at  once  proceeded  to  consider  what  can  be  said 
m  favour  of  the  postulate  of  eternal  life.     After 
thorough  consideration  of  the  classic  arguments  for 
immortality  (Chapter  III),  which  find  their  com- 
mon starting-point  in  the  essential  nature  of  man, 
I  have  shown  the  great  change  which  was  wrought,' 
m  this  field  of  thought  as  in  every  other,  by  the 
doctrine  of  evolution,  and  the  favourable  bearing 
of  this  doctrine  upon  our  problem  (Chapter  IV). 
The  demand  not  merely  for  favourable  arguments 
but  for  positive  proof,  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  scientific  temper  of  our  age,  brought  me  to  a 
study  of  the  remarkable  work  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  (Chapter  V).     This  I  found 


i 


X 


Preface 


significant  but  inconclusive.  Proof  of  our  hope, 
however,  need  not  for  this  reason  be  abandoned. 
On  the  contrary,  that  very  method  of  proof  which 
is  everywhere  used  today  for  the  substantiation 
of  the  deepest  and  highest  speculations  of  natural 
science,  is  fully  applicable  here,  and  demonstrates 
immortality  on  the  same  basis  that  the  mightiest 
truths  of  physics  and  chemistry  are  now  demon- 
strated. This  decisive  point  I  have  expounded 
under  the  well-considered  title  of  "The  Proof  of 
Immortality"  (Chapter  VI). 

But,  granted  that  immortaHty  is  a  reality,  is  it 
a  reality  for  all  men  or  only  for  a  selected  few.^ 
This  question  which  is  as  old  as  the  oldest  specula- 
tions of  a  hcaven-and-hell  theoIog>%  and  as  new 
as  the  newest  challenge  of  revolutionary  socialism, 
I  have  considered  at  length  under  the  modern 
title  of  ''Conditional  Immortality"  (Chapter  VH), 
and  answered  with  all  possible  emphasis  in  terms 
of  universalism.  The  analogous  question  of  the 
character  of  the  immortal  life  I  have  tried  to 
answer  (Chapter  VIII)  in  something  other  than 
the  rather  absurd  traditional  way.  The  modern 
scientific  method  has  a  very  direct  bearing  upon 
this  speculation  which  I  have  ventured  to  utilize. 

Discussions  of  the  two  questions,  "Is  Immortal- 
ity Desirable?"  (Chapter  IX),  and  "Mortal  or 
Immortal:  Does  It  Make  Any  Practical  Differ- 
ence.^" (Chapter  X),  in  which  I  trust  I  have 
made  the  practical  aspects  of  my  theme  manifest, 
bring  me  to  the  "Conclusion"  (Chapter  XI),  in 


Preface 


XI 


which  I  have  shown  the  relation  of  this  whole 
question  of  immortality  to  a  spiritual  interpreta- 
tion of  the  universe.  The  final  and  perfect 
justmcation  of  our  hope,  after  all,  must  rest  upon 
our  belief  in  God  and  the  soul.  If  these  are  true— 
and  who  will  assert  that  they  are  not  .>— then  it  is 
surely  something  more  than  probable  that  death 
is  not  the  end. 


Ill 


My  references  to  contemporary  writings  are 
numerous,  and  are  duly  noted  in  the  text.  I  have 
deliberately  made  quotations  as  many  and  as  full 
as  possible,  in  order  that  my  readers  may  be 
acquainted  not  merely  with  my  own  thought,  but 
with  the  tendency  of  modern  sentiment. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  make  acknowledgment 
of  the  indispensable  services  of  my  secretary,  Miss 
Mary  C.  Baker.  Without  her  indefatigable  assist- 
ance, this  book  would  never  have  been  completed. 


Church  of  the  Messiah, 

New  York  City,  November  i,  1914. 


J.  II.  H. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


I. — Lntroduction    . 

*  •  •  . 

II. — An  Open  Question  .         .         .         . 

III.— Intimations  of  Immortality 

IV. — Immortality  and  Evolution 

v.— Immortality  and  Scientific  Research 

VI.— The  Proof  of  Immortality 

VII. — Conditional  Immortality 

VIIL— What    will    Immortality   be   Like  ? 

IX. — Is  Immortality  Desirable  ? 

X.— Mortal  or  Immortal:  Does  it  Make 
Any  Practical  Difference  ? 

XI. — Conclusion 

•         •         •         . 

Appendix 


PAGE 
I 

21 

54 
III 

148 

196 

215 
272 

308 

331 
360 

379 


Xlll 


I 


"We  do  not  believe  immortality  because  we  have 
proved  it,  but  we  forever  try  to  prove  it  because  we 
believe  it."— James  Martineau. 


XV 


I 

! 


Is  Death  the  End? 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

•••In  what  way  shall  we  bury  you?'  said  Crito 
However  you  may  wish,'  replied  Socrates,  'only 
you  must  catch  me  first  and  see  that  I  don't  slip  away  ' 
And  then  smiling  quietly  and  turning  to  us,  he  said. 
Why,  my  fnends,  I  can't  convince  Crito  that  I  am 
this  Socrates  the  one  who  talks  with  you  and  argues 
at  length     He  thmks  that  I  am  that  other  whom 
presently  he  shall  see  lying  dead,  and  so  he  asks  how 
he  shall  bury  me.     All  the  words  I  have  spoken  to 
show  that  when  I  drink  the  poison  I  shall  no  longer 
remain  with  you,  but  shall  go  away  to  some  blessed 
region  of  the  happy  dead,-all  my  words  of  comfort 
for  you  and  for  myself  are  thrown  away  on  him 
Dear  Cnto,  bear   the  matter  more  lightly.     Be 'not 
troubled  at  my  supposed  sufferings  when  you  see  my 
body  burned  or  interred,  nor  say  at  the  funeral  that 
you  are  laying  out  Socrates,  or  carrying  Socrates  to 
the  grave,  or  burying  him.    ...     Be   brave,  and 
say  you  are  burying  my  body.     And  you  may  bury 
It  as  seems  to  you  good  and  as  custom  directs  '"— 
Socrates,  in  Plato's  Pluedo.    See  Dialogues,  trans,  by 
Jowett,  vol.  u.,  page  263. 


IN  asking  the  great  question,  Is  death  the  end? 

I  understand  that  I  am  entering  upon  the  very 

specific  inquiry  as  to  whether  death  is  the  end  of 


2  Is  Death  the  End  ? 

ourselves  as  separate  and  distinct  individualities. 
In  discussing  immortality,  I  assume  that  I  am 
discussing  the  survival  of  the  human  soul,  after 
the  dissolution  of  the  body,  in  the  full  retention  of 
its  conscious  identity.  I  open  this  discussion  with 
exactly  the  same  interpretation  of  the  essential 
problem  involved  that  Professor  Josiah  Royce  lays 
down,    in    his     The    Conception    of   Immortality. 

When  we  ask  [he  says],  about  the  immortality  of  man, 
it  is  the  permanence  of  the  individual  man  concerning 
which  we  mean  to  inquire,  and  not  primarily  the 
permanence  of  the  human  type  as  such,  nor  the 
permanence  of  any  other  system  of  laws  or  relation- 
ships. 

In  our  case,  as  in  his,  we  may  say  "so  far  .     .    . 
we  are  all  agreed!"' 


II 


It  is  well  to  make  this  interpretation  of  our  sub- 
ject perfectly  plain  at  the  outset,  in  order  that  there 
may  be  no  confusion  as  to  the  meaning  of  our  terms 
and  the  purpose  of  our  argument.  In  the  old  days 
this  identification  of  immortality  with  the  survival 
of  individuality  would  have  been  taken  for  granted. 
The  thought  of  "our  eternity  "  as  implying  survival 
without  any  sort  of  consciousness,  or  absorption 
into  some  kind  of  so-called  cosmic  consciousness, 
would  have  been  regarded  as  preposterous.     To 

'  See  Conception  of  Immortality^  page  2. 


Introduction  3 

be  conscious  after  death  exactly  as  before  death 
to  recall  the  past  and  to  be  able  to  connect  it  with 
the  present,  to  know  oneself  as  oneself  and  thus  as 
different  from  other  selves,  this,  and  nothing  less 
than  this,  it  is  to  be  immortal!     Dr.  John  Fiske 
reflects  the  traditional  idea  with  perfect  accuracy 
when  he  finds  the  essence  of  immortality  in  the 
permanence  of  that  personal  love  which  is  here 
at  once  the  source  and  end  of  life.     "We  are  all 
agreed,"  he  says,   "that  life  beyond  the  grave 
would  be  a  delusion  and  a  cruel  mockery  without 
the  contmuance  of  the  tender  household  affections 
which  alone  make  the  present  life  worth  living  '" 
Within  recent  years,  however,  this  general  agree- 
ment has  been  broken.     Indeed  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  there  has  been  a  concerted  endeavour 
in  certain  philosophical  quarters,  to  reinterpret  the 
conception  of  immortal  life  in  terms  of  something 
less  than  individual  survival.     At  the  bottom  of 
this  action,  of  course,  is  the  worthy  motive  of 
trying  to  save  some  remnant  of  the  eternal  hope 
from  that  complete  annihilation  which  seemed  to 
be  threatened  by  the  results  of  modem  biological 
and  psychological  research.     Recognizing  the  very 
real  difficulties  in  the  way  of  personal  immortality 
reluctant   to  go  with   the  materialists  to  what 
seemed  to  be  the  logical  conclusion  of  a  denial  of 
the  whole  conception  of  survival,  hopeful  that  it 
might  be  possible  to  retain  a  rational  belief  in  the 
permanence  of  "the  type, "  of  which  nature  seemed 

'  See  Life  Everlasting,  page  57. 


I 


Is  Death  the  End? 


''so  careful,"  if  not  of  "the  single  life/*  certain 
thinkers  have  entered  upon  a  deliberate  attempt 
to  empty  the  doctrine  of  immortality  of  all  of  its 
personal   content.     Maurice  Maeterlinck's  recent 
book,  entitled  Our  Eternity,  is  the  latest  illustra- 
tion of  this  conspicuous  tendency  of  contemporary 
thought.     Seeing   clearly  on  the   one   hand  that 
''survival  without  any  sort  of  consciousness  would 
be   tantamount  for  us   to  annihilation   pure  and 
simple,"  which  in  turn  he  regards  as  ''impossible" 
— convinced  on   the  other  hand   that   "survival 
with  our  present  consciousness  is  nearly   as  im- 
possible and  as   incomprehensible  as  total  anni- 
hilation," and  certain  that,  even  if  it  were  possible, 
it  would  still  be  highly  undesirable,  since  it  would 
involve  the  perpetuation  of  all  those  limitations  of 
the  present  life  from  which  any  future  life  must 
furnish  release— Maeterlinck  turns  confidently  to 
the  discussion  of  "infinities,"  and  finds  his  refuge 
at  last  in  some  kind  of  "modified  consciousness" 
as  he  calls  it,  which  is  but  feebly  distinguished 
from  the  larger,  all-inclusive  "cosmic  conscious- 
ness" into  which  it  seems  doomed  ultimately  to 
merge.      "Behold  us  before  the  mystery  of  that 
cosmic  consciousness,"  he  says,  in  conclusion  of 
his  argument.     "  If  this  consciousness  exist,   .    .    . 
it  is  evident  that  we  shall  be  there  and  take  part  in 
it.     If  there  be  a  consciousness  somewhere,   or 
some  thing  that  takes  the  place  of  consciousness, 
we  shall  be  in  that  consciousness  or  that  thing, 
because  we  cannot  be  elsewhere. "     And  if  there  be 


Introduction  5 

"no  sort  of  consciousness,  nor  anything  that  stands 
for  It,  the  reason  will  be  that  consciousness  or 
anything  that  might  replace  it,  is  not  indispensable 
to  eternal  happiness. "  ■ 


III 

To  the  person  familiar  with  the  traditional  inter- 
pretation of  immortality,  and  yearning  for  the 
survival  not  merely  of  himself  but  of  those  other 
dearly  beloved  selves  whose  existence  with  him  in 
this  world  has  alone  made  life  worth  while,  such  a 
nebulous  conception  of  the  future  as  this  must 
seem  utterly  abhorrent.    But  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that,  with  the  development  of  this  desperate 
attempt  to  save  the  shell  of  the  immortal  hope 
at  the  expense  of  the  kernel,  as  I  would  put  it, 
there  has  come  a  state  of  mind  which  finds  this 
kmd  of  impersonal  survival  not  only  attractive, 
but  infinitely  grander  and  nobler  than  the  old 
conception. 

A   most   impressive   illustration   of  this  very 
modern^  attitude  has,  strangely  enough,  just  come 
to  my  desk  in  the  shape  of  a  handsome  monograph 
written  and  privately  printed   by  an  honoured 
friend,    in    eulogy    of   a    remarkable    collie   dog 
named  Bob.  ^    At  the  close  of  his  very  touching 

■  See  Our  Eternity,  pages  248,  40,  179,  189,  254. 
'And  yet  very  ancient,  for  its  connection  with  much  Eastern, 
especially  Buddhist,  thought  is  obvious! 
»  The  Passing  0}  Bob,  by  J.  E.  Williams. 


6  Is  Death  the  End? 

tribute  to  his  canine  friend,  the  author  raises  the 
question,  which  has  ever  bothered  every  true  lover 
of  dogs, 

Does  the  soul  of  Bob  persist?  [and  he  answers  the 
question,  as  every  true  lover  of  dogs  has  ever  answered 
it,  in  the  affirmative.    His  idea  of  persistence,  however, 
is  unique.]     How  do   I  know  [he  asks],  that  Bob  is 
eternal?     Because  now  that  my  eyes  are  opened  I 
see  the  quaHties  that  Bob  has  taught  me  to  love  in 
him  in  every  dog  I  meet.    ...     A  brown  colHe, 
with  pointed  nose  and  speaking  eyes,  calls  up  the  same 
glad  thrill  within  me,  and  I  catch  myself  crying  out 
"Bob!"  almost  before  I  am  aware  of  it.     The  same 
abounding  joy  is  there,  the  same  wistful  pathos,  the 
same  adoring  affection,  all  the  qualities  that  were 
concentrated  and  raised  to  the  nth  degree  in    Bob 
are  incarnated  in  varying  measure  in  every  dog  that 
frisks  by  me  on  the  street.     And  I  know  that  this  is 
the  essence,  the  soul,  the  eternal  reality  of  Bob,  and 
that  the  protoplasmic  cells  which  had  their  aggregation 
and  Hmitation  in  time  were  only  the  temporary  vehicle, 
the  passing  channel,  of  a  spirit  which  will  flow  on 
through  other  Bobs  as  long  as  the  species  shall  last, 
and  then  sweep  on  down  the  stream  of  time  animating 
other  modes  of  motion,  other  forms  of  being,  through 
an  eternity. 

Then  he  passes  on  to  the  startling  question, 

Is  not  this  immortality  enough?  Do  we  still  cHng 
to  our  Httle  egos?  Still  hug  the  limitations  which 
fence  us  off  from  others?  Still  refuse  to  identify 
ourselves  with  the  great  soul  which  is  the  ocean  of 


1 

i 


Introduction  7 

which  we  are  a  drop?  Alas!  the  price  of  our  intellec 
tuahsm,  our  mdividuality.  Why  will  we  not  see  that 
the  precious  thmg  is  not  eternal  separateness  but 
eternal  contmuity?  Why  not  reaHze  that  what  we  Z 
our  heart  of  hearts  want  is  that  essences  shall  be  con- 

7^7"^^  ^ccidents;  souls-not  egos;  humanities- 
not  mdividuah ties? ^ 

And^  this  leads  directly  to  a  statement  of  our 
author  s  underlying  philosophy  of  life. 

In  my  limited  ego  [he  says],  I  am  only  the  gathering 
pomt,  the  ''coherer"  of  vibrations  thit  starTed  ba^k 

Lnni^h    T      ^""^'  '^  '^'^  ^^^^^  ^^^^  agitated 
unnumbered  centres  of  life  before  they  reached  me, 

and  wm  vibrate  again  through  countless  ages  until 

resolved  into  some  inconceivable  unity  of  bein^  some 

waveless  immobihty  of  existence,  in  which    in'  some 

unimaginable  fashion,  all  vibrations  shall  b;  merged 

T  h.  '  V  ^"^  -'"''^  ^'^^  ^^^  '^'''^  ^^^^  fi^^^  eternity.' 
I  have  hved  m  many  bodies,  and  shall  live  again  in  an 
endless  series  until  Time  itself  shall  cease  to  be. 

IV 

The  sublimity  of  such  a  faith  as  this,  both  in 
thought  and  feeling,  is  plain.  But  it  requires  only 
a  moment  s  consideration  to  discover  that,  what- 
ever  else  it  may  be,  it  is  not  a  faith  in  immortality » 
An  analysis  of  the  question.  Is  death  the  end^ 
reveals  four  possible  solutions  of  the  problem.  In 
the  first  place,  death  may  be  followed  by  total 


8 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Introduction 


annihilation.  Secondly,  one  may  survive,  but 
without  any  consciousness  whatsoever.  Thirdly, 
one  may  survive  with  just  the  same  consciousness 
of  personal  identity  which  we  have  today.  Lastly, 
one  may  survive  by  being  merged  with,  or  ab- 
sorbed into,  the  universal  consciousness,  whatever 
that  may  be  supposed  to  be. 

Of  these  four  conceivable  solutions,  only  the 
third  involves  what  is  rightly  meant  by  immor- 
tality! The  first  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  book 
to  demonstrate  is  impossible.  The  second,  while 
it  retains  in  form  at  least  the  idea  of  survival,  is 
really  equivalent,  as  Maeterlinck  points  out,  to 
annihilation.  ''The  hypothesis  is  unquestionably 
more  acceptable  than  that  of  annihilation "  .  .  . 
but  it  is  at  best  nothing  more  than  ''a  sleep  with 
no  dreams  and  no  awakening."' — But  why  is  not 
the  last  possibility  equivalent  to  annihilation 
also?  Wherein  is  there  any  difference  between 
losing  one's  consciousness  in  "sleep"  or  losing  it 
in  a  larger  consciousness  wherein  it  is  swallowed 
up  like  a  wave  f alHng  back  into  the  sea  from  which 
it  rose?  The  Eastern  mystics,  with  their  doctrine 
of  Nirvana,  certainly  have  no  illusion  upon  this 
point.  They  hail  absorption  into  the  Whole  as  the 
goal  of  existence,  and  the  way  to  this  goal  they 
call  the  Way  of  Salvation.  But  this  end  is  wel- 
comed, and  its  attainment  described  as  salvation, 
not  because  a  larger,  higher,  truer  life  is  gained, 
but  because  life  itself,  which  they  describe  as  in 

*  See  Our  Eternity,  page  248. 


essence  misery,  is  thereby  ended  once  for  all. 
Hence  the  conclusion  of  the  best  scholars  that  the 
doctrine  of  Nirvana  is  a  doctrine  not  of  immortality 
at  all,  but  of  annihilation  or  extinction ! 

Only  the  third  solution,  as  I  have  said,  can 
rightly  be  termed  a  theory  of  immortal  life !     These 
others,   especially   the  last,   may  have  in   them 
much  of  rest,  comfort,  inspiration.     They  may,  in 
the  last  analysis,  prove  to  be  ''more  to  be  desired" 
than  persistence  with  our  present  consciousness 
intact.     They  may  involve  a  sublimity  of  sacrifice 
which  is  remote  from  the  conception  of  personal 
survival.     If  so,  so  be  it!    But  let  us  not  juggle 
with  words  or  deceive  with  phrases.     For  the  sake 
of  clear  thinking  and  honest  speaking,  let  us  not 
use  language  which  has  a  very  fixed  and  definite 
meaning,  to  describe  new  or  alien  ideas !     Let  our 
"conversation   be,    Yea,    yea;  Nay,    nay!"     Im- 
mortality means  one  thing— that  I  as  I,  and  you 
as  you— I  knowing  that  I  am  I  and  not  you,  and 
you  knowing  that  you  are  you  and  not  I— shall 
continue  to  live  on  after  death,  in  this  intensely 
personal  way,  just  as  we  are  living  at  this  present 
moment !     It  may  be  that  we  cannot  believe  that 
the  survival  of  the  individual  in  this  way  is  pos- 
sible.    It  may  be  that  we  cannot  believe  that  such 
survival,  if  possible,  is  desirable.     But  if  such  be 
our  thought,  let  us  be  honest,  and  say  so.     Let  us 
declare  that  we  do  not  believe  in  immortaHty. 
Let  us  admit  that  death  is  the  end— of  usf     If 
we  similarly  cannot  believe  in  the  extreme  altema- 


10 


Is  Death  the  End? 


tive  of  absolute  annihilation  and  take  refuge  in 
some  doctrine  of  '*a  modified  consciousness'*  or 
other,  let  us  again  be  honest,  and  say  so  in  words 
that  hide  no  equivocation  of  meaning.  Let  us 
call  this  condition  survival,  persistence,  Nirvana! 
Anything  but  immortality!  These  ideas,  and 
others  like  them,  may  pertain  to  eternity,  strictly 
speaking;  but,  Maurice  Maeterlinck  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding,  they  do  not  pertain  to 
^'our  eternity." 


To  define  immortality  in  this  restricted  sense, 
is  not  to  assume  that  there  are  no  real  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  a  belief  in  the  survival  of  the  individ- 
ual as  such.  If  such  were  the  case,  the  writing  of 
this  book  could  and  should  be  stopped  at  this 
early  point  in  the  discussion.  How  can  personal 
identity  be  preserved  apart  from  the  body;  what 
is  there  in  our  "stream  of  consciousness"  that  is 
stable  enough  to  survive;  is  not  the  sense  of 
personal  identity  dependent  upon  memory,  and 
is  not  memory  one  of  the  most  uncertain  faculties 
of  the  mind ;  how  can  we  expect  our  consciousness 
of  self  to  survive  the  terrific  cataclysm  of  death, 
when  it  can  be  destroyed  by  a  slight  accident  to 
the  brain  or  a  mere  disorganization  of  the  nerves; 
what  is  there  in  this  life  which  is  really  worth 
carrying  over  into  the  next  life;  will  not  the  sur- 
vival of  the  memory  of  our  sins  and  sorrows  here 


I 


I 


\ 


Introduction 


II 


destroy  the  beauty  that  immortality  might  other- 
wise give,  and  make  "a  sleep  and  a  forgetting," 
or  an  absorption  in  the  All,  or  even  annihiliation, 
a  boon  m  comparison ;  if  we  expect  to  be  conscious 
of  this  life  in  the  Hfe  to  come,  why  are  we  not  now 
conscious  of  the  life  that  must  have  preceded  this, 
if  we  are  really  eternal  beings?     These  are  only 
a  few  of  the  questions  raised  by  the  thought  of 
immortality,    interpreted    as    personal    survival, 
which  stand  as  difficulties  in  the  way  of  full  belief! 
Nor  has  anybody  yet  discovered,  so  far  as  I  know,* 
how  these  questions  are  to  be  answered,  and  the 
difficulties  involved   therefore  removed.     In  the 
last  analysis,  I  presume,  the  postulate  of  immortal- 
ity must  be  described  as  utteriy  inconceivable; 
although  we  must  remember,  when  we  make  thi J 
confession,  that  this  fact  does  not  militate  in  the 
slightest   degree   against    its    possible,    or    even 
probable,  reality.     That  which  is,   by  the  very 
nature  of  its  reality,  beyond  the  bounds   of  expe- 
rience, must  be  inconceivable,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  denied  because  of  its  inconceivability. 

How  much  does  this  argument  (of  inconceivability) 
amount  to  [asks  John  Fiske,  in  his  Life  Everlasting] 
as  agamst  the  belief  that  the  soul  survives  the  body? 
The  answer  is,  Nothing!  absolutely  nothing.  It  not 
only  fails  to  disprove  the  validity  of  the  belief,  but 
does  not  raise  even  the  slightest  prima  facie  presump- 
tion against  it.' 

'  See  Life  Everlasting,  pages  61-62. 


12 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Introduction 


13 


An  opinion  which  another  scholar  confirms  with 
the  words,  **the  entire  absence  of  testimony  does 
not  even  raise  a  negative  presumption  except  in 
cases  when  testimony  is  accessible*'!' 

The  difficulties  are  there,  unquestionably !  But 
what  about  the  difficulties  that  are  raised  on  the 
other  hand  by  the  denial  of  immortality,  and  the 
obstacles  thereby  put  in  the  way  of  a  belief  in  our 
personal  extinction  or  absorption?  Take  as  the 
initial  difficulty,  for  example,  the  argument  of  such 
a  book  as  Royce*s  The  Conception  of  Immortality, 
wherein  it  is  laid  down  that  existence  per  se  implies 
individuality — that  not  to  be  an  individual  ^'differ- 
ent from  the  rest  of  the  world  an  e!«^ntia1 
unique  being,  *'*  is  not  to  exist  at  ail — and  that  the 

'Set!  The  CMC4ptim  4/  ImmartoUiy,  fki^et  j-fL  Wttovrtr  if 
trembled  by  this  problem  of  the  stirk-ivdl  <if  Ibr  individual  «s  An 
individual  shouSd  study  Rctycc\  little  IxxiV,  rt-iiTrcd  to  in  the  text, 
with  the  grotte^  caro.  Htu!i  then  |xi»  on  to  a  fiirthcr  study  oi  his 
bnetr  woffk.  The  WwU  end  tk€  Jndixidiul,  First  S^riti.  Tliit  it 
difficiiU*rmdinK,  but  rcvnarding  even  to  tho^  vbo  cannot  accvpt 
Processor  Royoe*&  Ide:ilsini.  "Imliviilvx&ltty^  vUcfa  vx*  are  tkvm 
loyalty  meaning  to  Okpn^^,  ffsu  Ixn  finil  and  consacious 

expression  in  a  kifc  that  .  .  is  oooscious,  and  that  in  its 
mtsmkti  .  i5i  conttAuraij;  with  the  fragmtntdfy  ami  flicker' 

ing  6xist«oc«  «bennn  we  txrm  soe  thromch  «  cU»  darkly  our 
idatioaB  to  God  and  to  the  fiml  inith.  I  kDov  not  in  the  laat 
...  by  what  processes  this  individuality  of  oar  human  hfo  it 
further  expffttsed  ....  I  know  ooly  that  our  \*arkm»  oNan- 
sngft  .  .  .  consckttcly  <ome  to  wh.^t  we  n>di\*idualb'.  and  God 
in  «hccn  a2oQ«  wo  aro  iadividoals,  shall  tof^ether  regard  as  the 
attaiBmont  of  our  unique  place,  and  <4  our  true  retationshapt 
both  to  other  iodividuals  and  the  all^ndasivc  IndivkluaU  God 
hinksdf .     Ptirthcr  iato  the  occult  st  it  not  tho  brssinoss  of  philo- 


I 


4 


imperfection  of  the  individual  in  this  world  and 
his  inherent  promise  of  larger  fulfilment  in  the 
future  is  the  one  sure  Ruaranteo  of  survival.     Here, 
in  other  words,  is  presented  a  rigorous  dilemma 
between  absolute  extinction  und  individual  im- 
mortality, with  a  denial  of  the  possil)ility  of  any 
other  kind  of  altcrnal.ive.     And  ad<l«i   to   thU 
stupendous  problem  of  the  nature  of  individuality 
which  confronts  every  doubter  of  personal  survival 
at  the  very  start,  there  arc  the  thousand  and  one 
overwhelming   questions  which   it   shall   be   the 
business  of  this  book  to  clucidat*.  as  its  argument 
moves  from  one  page  to  another  of  it*  progress 
To  be  persuaded,  or  rather  dissuaded,  by  the 
difficulties  that  stand  in  the  way  of  belief,  without 
also  surv'cying  the  difficulties  that  stand  in  the 
way  of  disbelief,  is  dangcnws  business.    Ccrt.-.inly 
the  difficulties  on  this  side  are  just  as  numerous,  to 
say  no  more,  as  they  arc  on  the  other  $idc.    It  is 
true  that  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  we  are  immortal. 
But  u  is  also  tnie  that  it  is  hard  to  believe  tlut  we 
are  not  immorUil. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is.  we  arc  here  oonfmntcd 
by  two  absolute  inconoeivabilitcs.  •  The  one  can 
as  little  be  understood,  or  even  imagined,  as  the 

»f*y  to  Ro.  My  noucst  fricodt  arc  alitody, ««  wc  luvo  mn 
occult  enough  for  inc.     I  «ait  until  this  nettal  slull  put  oa-' 

n««lvod  mto  ion.0  .,rr«,rrf««f  unity  <.f  being,  tome  w%,l«. 
WM.ty  of  cx,«™cc  i„  which.  «  «m,  unim,tMI* /«hi^. 
•m  wiiratK>n(i»h»llbcm«r»ed." 


14 


Is  Death  the  End? 


I 


other.  In  both  cases  there  is  an  absence  of  certain 
experimental  knowledge;  and  in  this,  as  in  similar 
dilemmas,  we  have  no  other  course  open  to  us,  as 
reasonable  beings,  but  to  follow  the  line  of  belief 
which  offers  the  least  resistance  of  irrationality. 
Take  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  for  example!  In 
the  beginning  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  and 
development  of  species  seemed  utterly  inconceiv- 
able. Today  in  spite  of  a  half -century  of  exhaus- 
tive research  by  the  greatest  scientific  minds  of 
modem  times,  with  its  marvellous  results  of  accu- 
mulated data  and  confirmed  hypotheses,  there  still 
remain  unanswered  questions  and  unsurmounted, 
if  not  unsurmountable,  difficulties.  Nevertheless 
the  speculation  set  forth  in  The  Origin  of  Species  is 
accepted  by  all  leading  scientists  today,  in  spite  of 
unanswered  questions  and  unsurmounted  difficul- 
ties, because  the  only  alternative  explanation  of 
the  facts  of  life  offers  questions  and  difficulties 
infinitely  more  serious  in  number  and  in  character. 
To  believe  that  species  originated  in  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  in  the  struggle  for  existence  is  hard 
enough.  But  what  about  trying  to  believe  that 
species  originate  by  the  process  of  special  creation? 
When  required  to  choose  between  such  alternatives, 
the  scientific  mind  does  not  hesitate  to  accept  the 
theory  of  evolution  as  true — at  least  until  the 
burden  of  difficulty  becomes  shifted. 

Now  the  problem  of  individual  survival  pro- 
vides a  parallel  to  this  example  of  evolution. 
Here  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  alternative 


\ 


Introduction 


15 


speculations.     To  accept  either,  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  other,  is  to  find  oneself  beset  by  perplexities 
and  problems.     In  both  cases,  one  is  driven  to  the 
acceptance  of  inconceivabilities.     And  yet  choice 
must  be  made !    That  the  difiiculties  in  the  way  of 
a  denial  of  immortality  are  infinitely  greater  than 
those  in  the  way  of  an  affirmation,  and  that  the 
positive  considerations  for  immortality  far  out- 
weigh all  that  can  be  said  for  annihilation  or 
impersonal  survival  of  any  kind,  it  is  the  purpose 
of  this  book  to  show.     And  that,  in  the  end,  I  do 
not  believe  any  lingering  doubts  upon  the  question 
can  be  left  in  the  mind  which  has  really  thought 
the  problem  through,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  I 
venture,  at  the  conclusion  of  my  direct  argument, 
to  speak  of  ' '  the  proof  of  immortality ! ' ' ' 


VI 


One  word  more  must  be  spoken  before  we  pro- 
ceed ! 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  much  of  the 
thought  of  our  time  has  been  turned  away  from 
the  conception  of  individual  immortality  to  that 
of  impersonal  survival  in  a  ''modified  or  cosmic 
consciousness,*'  by  the  feeling  that  the  persistence 
of  individuality  must  mean  the  persistence  of  the 
limitations  which  characterize  this  present  life. 
Thus  the  author  of  The  Passing  of  Bob  speaks 
repeatedly  of  "our  little  egos/'  protests  against 

'  See  below,  Chapter  VI. 


% 


ii«feS2!uKi;S»t:^siiik)'a^!S^fi;? 


i6 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Introduction 


17 


our  inordinate  desire  to  "hug  the  limitations  that 
fence  us  off  from  others,"  and  laments  ''our  poor 
little  strivings  after  separateness."  Maeterlinck 
declares  that  our  "ego  implies  limits,"  that  "this 
sense  of  a  special  ego  is  probably  an  infirmity  of  our 
actual  intelligence,"  and  that  in  asking  that  it 
"should  accompany  us  into  the  infinity  of  time," 
we  are  "acting  like  a  sick  man  who,  in  order  to 
recognize  himself,  .  .  .  should  think  it  necessary 
to  continue  his  sickness  in  health  and  in  the  unend- 
ing sequence  of  his  days."^  Hugo  Miinsterberg 
expresses  much  the  same  idea  in  his  The  Eternal 
Life,     Speaking  of  a  departed  friend,  he  says, 

I  do  not  think  that  I  should  love  him  better  if  I  hoped 
that  he  might  be  somewhere  waiting  through  time 
and  space  to  meet  us  again.  Nothing  could  be  added 
to  his  immortal  value  if  some  object  like  him  were  to 
enter  the  sphere  of  time  again.  I  feel  that  I  (should 
be  taking)  his  existence  in  the  space-time  world  as 
the  real  meaning  of  his  life,  and  thus  depriving  his 
noble  personality  of  every  value  and  of  every  meaning.  =* 

Individuality,  in  other  words,  implies  all  the 
restrictions  of  activity,  outlook,  vision,  which 
characterize  us  as  denizens  of  space  and  time,  and 
if  this  individuality  is  to  continue,  it  will  inevitably 
rob  the  next  life  of  all  that  makes  continuance 
into  the  future  worth  while. 

And  then,  too,  aside  from  this  feeling  of  the 

»  See  Our  Eternity,  page  53. 

•  See  The  Eternal  Life,  pages  67-69. 


4 


individual  as  "cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined," 
and  thus  incapable  as  an  individual  of  spiritual 
survival,  there  is  the  further  feeling  of  the  essen- 
tially ignoble  character  of  the  desire  for  a  personal 
immortality.     Is  anything  more  unworthy  than 
the  teachings  of  the  church  upon  the  subject  of 
personal  salvation?     Look  at  the  spectacle  of  the 
millions  of  men  and  women  in  all  ages  who,  like 
Christian  in  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,^  have  tried  to 
preserve  their  own  wretched  souls  from  destruction 
even  though  everybody  else  was  predestined  to 
annihilation.     Is  not  sacrifice  the  note  of  the  true 
life?    Is  not  he  the  highest  type  of  being  who 
gladly    dies    that,    by    his    death,    another   may 
survive?    Will  not  such  a  being  gladly  forego  all 
hope  of  immortality  for  his  own  poor  self,  if  only 
he  can  be  lost  in  that  great  Over-soul  of  Love  in 
which  he  has  been  living  all  his  days?    Must  not 
such  an  end,  indeed,  be  certain  if  the  self-sacrificing 
life  is  not  to  find  itself  deceived  and  mocked  when 
it  comes  to  its  latter  end? 

Such  considerations,  if  sound,  would  inevitably 
lead  every  right-minded  man  to  an  abandonment 
of  the  traditional  idea  of  immortality.  No  one  of 
us  desires  to  be  immortal  at  the  expense  of  per- 
petuating  the  limitations   and   imperfections   of 

J''  Now  he  had  not  run  far  from  his  own  door  when  his  wife  and 
children  perceiving  it,  began  to  cry  after  him  to  return;  but  the 
man  put  his  fingers  in  his  ears,  and  ran  on,  crying.  'Life'  Hfe' 
eternal  Hfe! ' "  Pilgrim's  Progress,  page  3.  Was  tiiere  ever  a  more 
stnking  example  than  this  of  how  the  necessities  of  a  bad  theology 
can  befuddle  the  moral  sentiments? 


I 


i8 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Introduction 


19 


this  present  existence,  and  of  surrendering  our 
souls  to  the  ignoble  instincts  of  mere  self-preserva- 
tion. But  are  these  considerations  sound?  On 
the  contrary,  are  they  not  founded  upon  an  inac- 
curate conception  of  the  meaning  of  the  individual 
life?  Is  real  individuality  hedged  about  by  any 
such  ''separateness"  as  is  here  implied?  Is  the 
individual  truest  to  himself  as  an  individual  when 
he  seeks  to  save  himself  at  the  cost  of  any  destruc- 
tion to  his  fellows?  Is  not  individuality  most 
genuinely  realized  when  the  barriers  of  separation 
are  overthrown,  and  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion lost  in  the  mighty  passion  of  sacrifice?  When 
does  an  individual  more  fully  realize  the  possibil- 
ities of  individuality  than  when  he  surrenders  his 
life,  in  love  and  adoration,  to  the  perpetual  service 
of  another?  When  is  a  man  more  truly  a  man 
than  when,  in  some  moment  of  national  crisis,  he 
finds  his  life  merged  into  that  of  his  country,  and 
gladly  dies  in  her  defence  upon  the  field  of  battle? 
When  are  we  more  truly  our  best  selves  than  when 
we  are  captivated  by  some  cause  for  the  better- 
ment of  humanity,  or  fall  under  the  spell  of  some 
great  leader  of  such  a  cause,  and  without  a  thought, 
"leave  all  and  follow?"  Individuality  is  not  a 
matter  of  separateness  or  isolation,  of  petty  desires 
or  selfish  fears.  "He  that  findeth  his  life  shall 
lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life,  for  my  sake, 
shall  find  it."  We  are  our  best  selves,  our  real 
selves,  not  when  we  are  apart,  seeking  our  own, 
forgetful  of  the  world,  but,  on  the  contrary,  when 


we  are  with  our  fellows,  serving  mankind,  losing 
ourselves  in  the  all-encompassing  unities  of  life. 
It  is  at  such  all-too-rare  and  glorious  moments, 
strangely  enough,  that  we  are  most  intensely 
conscious  of  ourselves  as  individuals.  The  very 
loss  seems  to  constitute  that  discovery  of  self  which 
otherwise  and  otherwhere  we  have  never  made. 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has  touched  upon  this  in  a  wonder- 
ful passage  in  a  recent  book.  Speaking  of  the 
greater  life  of  humanity  which  is  yet  to  come,  he 
says, 

There  come  moments  when  the  light  shines  out  upon 
our  thoughts.  Sometimes  in  the  dark,  sleepless 
solitudes  of  night,  one  ceases  to  be  so-and-so,  one 
ceases  to  hear  a  proper  name,  forgets  one's  quarrels 
and  vanities,  forgives  and  understands  one's  enemies 
and  oneself,  as  one  forgives  and  understands  the 
quarrels  of  little  children,  knowing  oneself  to  be  a 
greater  than  one's  personal  accidents,  knowing  one- 
self for  Man  on  his  planet,  flying  swiftly  to  unmeas- 
ured destinies  through  the  starry  stillness  of  space.  * 

And  James  Russell  Lowell  voices  the  same  paradox 
of  "knowing  oneself"  through  ceasing  "to  be  so- 
and-so,  "  in  a  famous  passage  in  his  Cathedral: 

This  life  were  brutish  did  we  not  sometimes 
Have  intimation  clear  of  wider  scope, 
Hints  of  occasion  infinite,  to  keep 
The  soul  alert  with  noble  discontent 
And  onward  yearnings  of  unstilled  desire; 

*  See  Social  Forces  in  England  and  America^  page  514. 


20 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Fruitless,  except  we  now  and  then  divined 
A  mystery  of  Purpose,  gleaming  through 
The  secular  confusions  of  the  world, 
Whose  will  we  darkly  accompHsh,  doing  ours. 
No  man  can  think  nor  in  himself  perceive, 
Sometimes  at  waking,  in  the  street  sometimes, 
Or  on  the  hillside,  always  unforewarned, 
A  grace  of  being,  finer  than  himself. 
That  beckons  and  is  gone,— a  larger  life 
Upon  his  own  impinging,  with  swift  glimpse 
Of  spacious  circles  luminous  with  mind. 
To  which  the  ethereal  substance  of  his  own 
Seems  but  gross  cloud  to  make  that  visible, 
Touched  to  a  sudden  glory  round  the  edge. 

It  is  on  such  Mounts  of  Transfiguration  as  these 
that  we  truly  find  ourselves— **  put  on  individual- 
ity," '  as  Royce  expresses  it !  Hence  need  we  have 
no  fear  that  immortality,  in  the  true  personal  sense, 
involves  something  either  undesirable  or  unworthy. 
In  these  great  moments  of  discovery  of  the  Infinite, 
do  we  see  all  that  true  individuality  really  means ; 
and  at  the  same  time  the  necessity  that  life  shall 
continue  forever,  that  these  infinite  reaches  of 
personality  may  be  at  last  attained. 

«  See  The  Conception  of  Immortality,  page  80. 


CHAPTER  II 


AN  OPEN  QUESTION 

"With  respect  to  immortality!  As  physical  science 
states  this  problem,  it  seems  to  stand  thus:  Is  there 
any  means  of  knowing  whether  the  series  of  states  of 
consciousness,  which  has  been  casually  associated  for 
threescore  years  and  ten  with  the  arrangement  and 
movement  of  innumerable  millions  of  successively 
different  material  molecules,  can  be  continued,  in  like 
association,  with  some  substance  which  has  not  the 
properties  of  'matter  and  force'?  As  Kant  said, 
on  a  like  occasion,  if  anybody  can  answer  that  ques- 
tion, he  is  just  the  man  I  want  to  see.  If  he  says  that 
consciousness  cannot  exist  except  in  relation  of  cause 
and  effect  with  certain  organic  molecules,  I  must  ask 
how  he  knows  that;  and,  if  he  says  it  can,  I  must  put 
the  same  question.  And  I  am  afraid  that,  Hke  jest- 
ing Pilate,  I  shall  not  think  it  worth  while  (having 
but  little  time  before  me)  to  wait  for  an  answer." — 
Thomas  H.  Huxley,  in  Fortnightly  Review^  December, 
1886. 


ALMOST  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
human  thought,  and  absolutely  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  Christian  experience,  the 
conception  of  immortality  is  today  being  brought 
into  very  open  and  serious  question.  There  have 
always  been  doubters,  to  be  sure,  like  the  author 


21 


4 


22 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


23 


of  Johy  who  have  not  hesitated  to  raise  the  question, 
*'If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again? '*^  There  have 
always  been  deniers,  like  Omar  Khayyam,  who 
have  pictured  life  as 

One  moment  in  Annihilation's  Waste, 

One  moment  of  the  Well  of  Life  to  taste, 

The  Stars  are  setting,  and  the  Caravan 

Draws  to  the  Dawn  of  Nothing — Oh  make  haste! 

There  have  always  been  honest  men  who  have 
confessed,  as  Socrates  confessed  at  the  hour  of 
his  death,  that  "God  only  knows"  whether  it  is 
better  ''to  die  (or)  to  live/''  But  the  majority 
of  men  have  always  believed,  for  one  reason  or 
another,  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  have 
apparently  been  willing  to  accept  this  doctrine 
without  questioning  even  while  rejecting  every 
other  theological  or  religious  conception.  This  has 
been  true  of  the  men  who  have  reasoned  as  well 
as  of  the  men  who  have  prayed — of  the  men  who 
have  investigated  in  their  laboratories  and  taught 
in  their  university  chairs,  as  well  as  of  the  men 
who  have  preached  in  their  pulpits  and  stood 
in  their  confessionals.  Leibnitz  setting  forth  the 
doctrine  of  eternal  life  as  one  of  the  truths  of 
natural  religion— Kant  classifying  the  idea  of  im- 
mortality with  the  ideas  of  God  and  of  freedom 
as  one  of  the  three  ideas  the  validity  of  which  is 
attested  by  the  practical,  if  not  by  the  pure,  reason 

»  See  Joh  xiv  :  14. 

a  See  Dialogues,  trans,  by  Jowett,  vol.  ii.,  page  135. 


— Butler  laying  down  this  conception  as  the 
premise  of  all  his  argument  in  support  of  revealed 
religion — these  men  have  been  typical.  In  this 
instance,  as  in  almost  no  other  instance  in  the 
history  of  thought,  men  have  agreed  to  believe  in 
what  they  knew  they  could  not  know. 


II 


Today,  however,  the  situation  is  different.  No 
longer  do  we  find  this  conception  of  immortality 
serenely  accepted  by  the  majority  of  mankind,  and 
remaining  practically  unchallenged  by  those  whose 
habit  of  mind  it  is  to  think.  Dr.  William  Osier, 
the  eminent  physician  of  Oxford,  gives  it  as  his 
opinion,  that  "Practical  indifference  is  the  modem 
attitude  of  mind  [on  this  question];  we  are  Lao- 
diceans — neither  hot  nor  cold,  but  lukewarm,  as 
a  very  superficial  observation  will  make  plain.**' 
It  is  difficult,  he  says,  for  example,  to  get  people 
to  discuss  the  problem  at  all,  even  when  they  give 
it  as  their  conviction,  when  pressed  upon  the 
matter,  that  they  believe  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul. 

But  this  does  not  tell  by  any  means  the  whole  of 
the  story.  For  even  when  we  come  to  men  and 
women  who  are  intensely  interested  in  the  question 
of  the  immortal  life  and  are  giving  much  of  their 
best  thought  to  the  solution  of  the  problem — and 
there  are  many  of  these  persons  still! — we  are 


See  Science  and  Immortality,  page  10. 


^SSj'^Siy^PMll 


?^f  «■  '?''^- •■!«sr-" 


■■a|is*r«S&SilSi****K»' 


24 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


25 


likely,  I  believe  as  a  matter  of  personal  experience, 
to  find  people  who  have  serious  doubts  about  the 
truth  of  the  doctrine.  As  these  lines  are  being 
written,  for  example,  I  receive  a  letter  from  a 
scholarly  and  distinguished  minister  of  one  of  our 
great  Protestant  denominations,  in  which  he  says, 
*'  I  really  find  it  difficult  to  believe  in  immortality.  '* 
The  more  honest  among  the  doubters  admit,  as 
did  Thomas  Huxley,  that  they  do  not  know  any- 
thing definite  about  the  subject,  and  that  they  are 
therefore  holding  their  minds  in  a  state  of  suspen- 
sion, until  some  certain  evidence  on  the  one  side 
or  on  the  other  shall  appear.  But  even  these  men 
confess  that,  in  their  heart  of  hearts,  they  do  not 
believe  that  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  a  rational 
probability,  and  declare  their  expectation  that  this 
present  life  is  "the  be-all  and  the  end-all"  of 
existence.  Who  can  forget,  for  example,  the 
pathetic  reflection,  on  the  last  page  of  the  Auto- 
biography of  Herbert  Spencer,  which  was  penned 
in  his  advanced  old  age,  on  **  the  insoluble  questions 
concerning  our  own  fate,"  with  the  confession 
that  there  comes  in  his  case  "the  thought,  so 
strange  and  so  difficult  to  realize,  that  with  death 
there  lapses  both  the  consciousness  of  existence 
and  the  consciousness  of  having  existed  .f*" 


in 


It  would  be  interesting  to  enumerate  the  causes 
which  have  been  at  work  to   bring   about   this 


recent  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  human  mind 
toward  the  question  of  the  eternal  life.     Thus  we 
might  speak  of  the  extension  of  modern  knowledge, 
which  has  given  us  a  universe  so  greatly  enlarged, 
both  in  space  and  time,  as  to  eliminate  altogether 
the  old  ideas  of  the  life  beyond  the  grave.     There 
is  that  breaking  down  of  the  older  conceptions  of 
religious  authority,  which  has  done  so  much  to 
weaken  the  hold  of  the  traditional  dogmas  of  the 
church  on  many  minds,  and  open  up  the  way  to 
a  thoroughgoing  scepticism.     Then  there  is  that 
new  analysis  of  the  inner  life,  the  distinctive  feature 
of  which  is  the  breaking  up  of  the  single,  unchang- 
ing, central  personality,  or  soul,  into  what  has  come 
to  be  known  as  "the  stream  of  consciousness." 
We  no  longer  seem  to  have,  or  be,  a  self,  but  a 
rapidly  forming  succession  of  different  selves,  each 
one  alien  from  all  that  have  gone  before  and  from 
all  that  will  follow  after.     The  soul,  in  other  words, 
as    a   personal    entity . ,  which_remains    eternally 
unchanged  in  the  midst  of  change,' seems^toTave' 
disappeared  entirely.     Furthermore,  we  must  not 
forget  the  new  ethical  ideals  and  social  impulses 
which  have  taken  possession  of  our  hearts,  and 
persuaded  us  that  it  is  God's  will  that  the  vision 
of  a  redeemed  humanity  shall  be  fulfilled  right 
here  upon  the  earth,  and  that  God  does  not  need, 
therefore,  any  indefinite  future  for  the  fulfilment 
of  his  purposes.     Then,  too,  there  is  that  general 
shifting  of  our  personal  interest  from  the  somewhat 
dim  and  shadowy  affairs  of  a  hypothetical  next- 


26 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


27 


world,  to  the  very  concrete  and  appealing  realities 
of  the  world  right  here  and  now  before  our  face 
and  eyes,  which  is  the  most  obvious  and  impressive 
result  of  the  scientific  renaissance  of  the  last  century. 

No  one  of  these  causes,  however,  nor  all  of  them 
taken  together,  really  explain  the  change  which 
has  come  over  the  attitude  of  the  human  mind 
within  the  space  of  a  single  generation.  These 
facts  which  have  just  been  named  might  explain  the 
prevailing  lack  of  interest  in  the  problem.  But 
beyond  this  is  the  cloud  of  doubt  which  is  hanging 
today  over  so  many  hearts,  and  the  actual  dark- 
ness of  out-and-out  denial  which  has  enshrouded  so 
many  lives.  And  this  can  be  explained  only  on  the 
basis  of  another  fact  which  has  done  more  than 
anything  else  which  could  be  mentioned  to  persuade 
intelligent,  serious,  well-informed,  and  spiritually- 
minded  persons  that  the  immortal  life  is  after  all 
nothing  but  an  illusion. 

I  refer  to  the  new  light  which  has  recently  been 
shed  upon  the  fact  of  personality  by  the  scientific 
discoveries  and  investigations  of  modern  times, 
and  the  new  interpretation  of  the  soul  and  its 
relation  to  the  body,  which  has  followed  as  a 
necessary  consequence.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  we  have  a  problem  of  immortality  today, 
as  one  of  the  most  vexing  theological  questions  of 
our  time,  only  because  the  old  idea  of  the  soul  and 
the  body,  with  which  the  conception  of  immortality 
was  in  every  way  consistent,  has  seemingly  been 
destroyed  by  the  new  science  of  psychology;  and 


because  this  new  psychology  has  brought  us  face 
to  face  with  a  new  idea  of  the  relation  between  the 
soul  and  the  body,  with  which  the  conception  of 
immortality  seems  to  be  in  every  way  inconsistent. 
If  the  new  psychology  proves  its  case,  the  doctrine 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  would  seem  to  be 
dismissed  from  further  consideration;  and  it   is 
because    so    many    people    think    that    the    new 
psychology  has  already  proved  its  case,  that  we 
find   so  great  a  change  of  attitude  toward  the 
doctrine  in  recent  times.     It  is  just  here,  in  this 
physiological  and  psychological   question  of  the 
relation   between  body  and   soul,   that   the  real 
problem  of  immortality  is  to  be  found ;  and  it  is 
just   here,   therefore,   that   all   discussion   of   the 
problem  must  begin.     If  we  find  an  answer  which 
is  favourable  to  the  spiritualistic  hypothesis,  or 
even  neutral,  then  the  more  familiar  arguments 
for  the  reality  of  the  immortal  hope,  drawn  from 
the  fields  of  history,  psychology,  ethics,  and  religion, 
can  be  accepted  for  what   they  may  be  worth. 
But  if  we  find  here  an  answer  which  is  even  remotely 
unfavourable,  then  the  question  must  be  regarded 
as  closed,  and  all  further  arguments  rejected  as 
worse  than  vain.     It  is  to  this  question,  therefore, 
that  we  must  turn,  before  any  other  aspect  of  the 
problem  can  be  discussed. 

IV 

The  old  doctrine  of  immortality,  in  so  far  as  it  had 
its  basis  in  anything  other  than  simple  fear,  or  hope, 


28 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


29 


or  out-and-out  superstition,  found  its  rational  justi- 
fication in  the  theory  that  a  man's  individuality 
consisted  at  bottom  of  a  spiritual  reality  which 
we  call  the  soul,  and  that  this  soul  had  a  merely 
chance  and  temporary  relation  with  the  physical 
body  which  it  inhabited.  The  body  came  from  the 
dust,  and  in  due  process  of  time  returned  to  the 
dust  from  which  it  came.  The  soul,  however, 
came  from  God,  and  returned  at  the  moment  of 
death,  which  was  none  other  than  the  moment  of 
physical  dissolution,  to  the  Divine  Spirit  from 
which  it  came.  The  body  was  "of  the  earth, 
earthy,"  and  therefore  mortal;  but  the  soul, 
which  constituted  the  essence  of  personality,  was 
"heavenly,"  and  therefore  immortal.  Paul  had 
this  dual  conception  in  mind  when  he  described 
the  body  as  a  temple,  in  which  the  soul  had  its 
earthly  abode;  and  again,  in  the  great  passage 
in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians,  when  he 
pictured  the  soul,  at  the  moment  of  death,  as 
putting  off  "the  natural  body"  which  was  corrupt- 
ible and  therefore  mortal,  and  putting  on  the 
"spiritual  body"  which  was  incorruptible  and 
therefore  immortal.^  Socrates  shared  this  idea, 
when  he  said  in  his  last  talk  with  his  disciples  that 
there  were  two  Socrateses — one  the  body,  which 
was  of  no  importance,  and  could  be  burned  or 
buried  as  they  saw  fit,  and  the  other  the  spirit 
which  would  escape  from  the  body  and  "go  to  the 
joys  of  the  blessed."     Longfellow  expressed  the 

»  See  I  Corinthians,  xv. 


same    idea,  when    he    wrote    in    his    Psalm    of 
Life, 

Dust  thou  art,  to  dust  returnest. 
Was  not  spoken  of  the  soul. 

This  conception  of  a  separable  relation  between 
these  two  realities,  the  soul  and  the  body,  was 
never  worked  out  in  the  past  in  any  true  scientific 
way.     All  sorts  of  questions  were  asked  as  to  when 
the  soul  entered  the  body,  and  when  it  went  away, 
and  how  the  relationship  was  joined  and  main- 
tained; and  endless  discussions  were  held,  in  medi- 
eval times,  as  to  just  in  what  organ  of  the  body  the 
soul  had  its  abiding  place.     But  the  general  idea 
that  the  soul  was  one  thing  and  the  body  another, 
and  that  the  two  had  no  necessary  or  permanent 
connection  was  perfectly  clear,  and  was  accepted 
almost  without  question.     The  old  tradition  of  the 
last  moment  in  the  life  of  the  good  St.  Patrick, 
when  the  watchers  by  his  couch  saw  a  thin  white 
vapour  drift  slowly  upward  from  the  lips  of  the 
dying  man,  and  knew  that  this  was  his  soul  pass- 
ing from  earth  to  heaven,  is  only  a  very  vivid,  if 
somewhat  crude,  representation  of  the  psychology 
which  has  enjoyed  well-nigh  universal  approval 
until  comparatively  recent  times. ' 

'  "Dr.  Edward  Clarke  told  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes  that  once,  as  he 
sat  by  the  side  of  a  dying  woman,  he  saw,  at  the  moment  of 
death,  'a  something  rise  from  the  body,  which  seemed  like  a 
departing  presence. '  .  .  .  Dr.  Holmes  adds  that  he  heard  the 
same  experience  told,  almost  in  the  same  words,  by  a  lady  whose 
testimony  was  eminently  to  be  relied  on.     While  watching  her 


30 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


31 


Now  it  is  in  the  acceptance  in  the  past  of  this 
dual  relation  between  the  soul  and  the  body  that 
we  find  the  real  explanation  of  the  fact  that  the 
doctrine  of  immortality  has  so  seldom  been  called 
into  dispute,  even  by  the  most  critical  and  sceptical 
minds.  It  is  perfectly  evident,  is  it  not,  that,  with 
such  a  theory  of  our  personality  as  this  in  vogue, 
the  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  not  only 
the  consistent  but  also  the  only  rational  conception 
of  the  future  which  the  human  mind  can  hold. 
Death  means  nothing  to  us  but  the  dissolution  of 
the  body ;  and  if  the  soul  is  independent  of  this 
body,  then  of  course  it  is  not  necessarily,  or  even 
possibly,  affected  by  its  destruction.  It  simply 
abandons  the  body,  at  the  moment  of  death,  as 
you  or  I  might  abandon  an  outworn  garment; 
and  straightway  puts  on  that  "spiritual  body," 
which  St.  Paul  described  as  the  fitting  garment  of 
the  life  beyond  the  grave.  It  is  as  impossible  to 
believe,  from  the  standpoint  of  such  a  psychological 
conception  as  this,  that  the  soul  dies  when  the  body 
dies,  as  to  think  that  a  householder  has  necessarily 
perished  because  his  home  has  been  destroyed,  or 
that  the  crew  of  a  ship  has  necessarily  been  lost 
because  the  vessel  itself  has  disappeared  beneath 
the  waves.     So  long  as  no  essential  connection  is 


parent,  she  felt  aware,  at  the  moment  of  death,  of  a  'something' 
which  arose  as  if  the  spirit  was  perceived  in  the  act  of  leaving  the 
body.  Dr.  Clarke  and  Dr.  Holmes  seem  both  to  have  attached 
a  certain  weight  to  these  phenomena.  "—James  Freeman  Clarke 
in  Ten  Great  Religions,  vol.  ii.,  page  321. 


recognized  between  the  body  and  the  soul,  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  must  be  regarded  as  not 
only  probable  but  certain.  The  only  way  in  which 
this  conception  can  possibly  be  shaken  is  to  prove 
that  the  soul  is  a  part  of  the  body,  or  in  some  way 
tied  up  with  the  body,  and  the  fate  of  the  one 
therefore  inextricably  entangled  with  the  fate  of 
the  other. 

Now  it  is  just  this  very  thing,  strangely  enough, 
which  seems  to  have  been  achieved  by  the  various 
observations  and  discoveries  of  the  science  of  our 
day.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  human 
thought,  we  have  today  an  absolutely  scientific 
psychology — a  psychology  which  finds  it  just  as 
natural  to  work  in  the  laboratory  as  do  chemistry 
and  physics,  and  which  formulates  general  laws 
upon  the  basis  of  observed  phenomena  almost  as 
accurately  as  astronomy  and  biology.  And  it  is  the 
investigations  and  conclusions  of  this  psychology 
which  have  overthrown,  in  the  minds  of  many 
authoritative  and  unprejudiced  students  of  the 
question,  this  old  dualist ic  conception  of  person- 
ality upon  which  we  have  just  been  enlarging,  and 
have  forced  upon  us  a  new  conception,  which 
apparently  robs  the  soul  of  its  independence,  and 
thus  makes  its  destiny  to  be  identical  with  that  of 
the  physical  organism  with  which  it  is  here  united. 


This  new  theory  of  the  relation  between  the 
soul  and  the  body,  which  has  been  put  forward  by 


a 


32 


Is  Death  the  End? 


the  new  psychology,  may  be  best  summed  up, 
perhaps,  in  the  simple  statement  that  the  soul  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  one  of  the  numerous 
functions  of  the  body .  The  new  psychology  makes 
the  personaHty  a  unit  by  asserting,  that  our 
''conscious  mental  phenomena  are  products  of  the 
organic  tissues  with  which  they  are  associated.**' 
Of  course,  the  mind,  as  a  bodily  function,  is 
infinitely  superior  in  character  and  results  to  any 
other  function  of  which  we  have  knowledge; 
but  it  is  a  function  all  the  same,  and  therefore  at 
bottom  a  manifestation  of  the  same  physical  forces 
which  "guide  digestion,  contract  a  muscle,  or  heal 
a  wound.'*  The  soul,  in  other  words,  is  imme- 
diately dependent  upontheso-called"  grey-matter*' 
of  our  brains ;  or,  as  one  of  the  earlier  materialists 
expressed  it  in  vivid  phrase,  "the  brain  secretes 
thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile.'*' 

There  are  two  significant  reasons,  among  others 
less  important,  which  may  be  offered  in  support  of 
this  theory  of  the  identity  of  soul  and  body. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  matter  of  common 
observation,  to  say  nothing  of  scientific  demon- 
stration, that  every  change  in  a  mental  state  is 
accompanied  by  some  corresponding  change  in  the 
nervous  system — or  to  put  it  more  cogently,  that 
every  mental  state  is  the  immediate  result  of  some 
specific  brain  condition.  Thus,  it  is  evident  that 
we  can  have  no  mental  life  at  all,  and  therefore  no 

»  See  John  Fiske's  Life  Everlasting,  page  66. 
■  See  Ihid.,  page  67. 


An  Open  Question 


33 


sensations,  thoughts,  affections,  aspirations,  unless 
we  first  be  provided  with  the  physical  mechanism 
of  a  brain.  Any  arrest  of  brain  development  is 
directly  followed  by  some  degree  of  imbecility. 
A  blow  on  the  head  causes  unconsciousness,  and, 
if  it  be  severe  enough,  loss  of  memory.  A  clot  of 
blood,  or  a  bit  of  bone,  pressing  down  upon  the 
brain,  will  alter  the  whole  mental,  moral,  and 
spiritual  life  of  the  victim;  and  the  relief  of  this 
pressure  will  instantly  restore  normal  conditions. 
But  not  only  is  thought  in  general  thus  dependent 
upon  the  brain,  but  physiologists  and  pathologists 
have  also  shown  us  that  "various  special  forms  of 
thinking  are  functions  of  special  portions  of  the 
brain."'  When  we  are  thinking  of  things  seen, 
one  part  of  the  brain  is  being  used ;  when  of  things 
heard,  another  part;  and  when  of  things  spoken, 
still  a  third  part.  From  the  standpoint  of  this 
theory,  our  brain  has  been  minutely  charted,  ac- 
cording to  the  various  divisions  of  our  mental  life. 
Further  research  along  these  lines,  says  Prof. 
William  James,  in  a  discussion  of  this  subject, 
may  make  necessary  a  revision  of  some  of  our  exact 
opinions;  "yet  so  firmly  estabHshed  do  the  main 
positions  worked  out  by  the  anatomists,  physiolo- 
gists, and  pathologists  of  the  brain  appear,  that 
the  youth  of  our  medical  schools  are  everywhere 
taught  unhesitatingly  to  believe  them.**^ 
The  second  argument  for  this  thesis  of  the  de- 

*  See  reference  in  William  James's  Human  Immortality ,  page  8. 
*See  Ibid.,  page  9. 


34 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


An  Open  Question 


35 


pendence  of  the  mind  upon  the  body  is  drawn  from 
the  doctrine  of  evolution.  It  is  a  well-known  fact 
of  course,  that  science,  in  the  pursuit  of  its  inves- 
tigations during  the  last  fifty  or  more  years,  has 
been  able  to  trace  the  development  of  the  physical 
organism,  from  the  lowest  unicellular  creatures  in 
the  oozy  slime  of  the  primitive  world  upon  the  one 
hand,  to  the  complicated  mechanism  of  the  human 
body  upon  the  other.  It  may  not,  perhaps,  be 
equally  well-known  that  a  development  of  the 
mind,  as  distinguished  from  the  physical  brain, 
has  been  similarly  traced.  The  lowest  stages  of 
the  nervous  processes  were  nothing  more  than 
certain  blind  impulses,  which  were  so  feeble  and  so 
mechanical  as  hardly  to  be  described  as  sponta- 
neous. Gradually  these  impulses  developed,  in  the 
higher  forms  of  organic  life,  into  w^hat  we  know 
as  instincts,  and  these  instincts  in  turn  into  the 
exalted  intellectual  attributes  of  man.  And  always 
the  development  of  the  mental  processes  went 
along  parallel  with  the  development  of  the  nervous 
system.  The  mind,  in  other  words — or  the  soul, 
as  we  choose  to  call  it — seems  to  have  an  origin 
which  is  just  as  far  removed  from  the  spiritual 
as  the  body.  At  bottom,  it  appears  to  be  nothing 
more  than  the  last  stage  of  a  slowly  evolving  bodily 
function.  Our  mental  life  is  of  course  indefinitely 
more  advanced  than  anything  that  we  have  ever 
seen  in  the  lower  animals,  even  those  most  nearly 
related,  in  the  evolutionary  process,  to  ourselves; 
but  we  differ  apparently  in  degree,  and  not  in  kind, 


I 


and  we  share  therefore  in  no  attribute  essentially 
different  from  those  possessed  by  the  birds  of  the 
air  and  the  beasts  of  the  field. 

It  is  for  reasons  such  as  these,  that  the  soul 
must  be  regarded  not  as  a  separate  spiritual  entity, 
having  an  origin  apart  from  the  body  and  existing 
independent  of  the  body,  but  as  one  of  the  nu- 
merous specific  functions  of  the  body,  and  con- 
sequently  dependent   directly  upon  the  physical 
processes  of  the  body.    And  it  is  this  well-accredited 
fact  of  science— so  it  is  argued— which  for  evermore 
puts  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
altogether  out  of  court!     It  is  obvious,  is  it  not, 
that  a  function  cannot  operate  or  persist  after  the 
organ,  of  which  it  is  the  vital  expression,  has  under- 
gone decay  or  disintegration.     It  is  a  matter  of 
everyday  observation  that  all  the  functions  of  the 
physical  organism  instantly  cease,   in  the  same 
manner  and  at  the  same  time,  at  the  moment  of 
death— and  this  must  be  as  true  of  the  function 
of  the  brain  as  of  the  function  of  any  other  organ  of 
the  body?    To  believe  that  the  soul  lives  after  the 
body   dies!— how   is   this   more  sensible  than  to 
believe  that  digestion  persists  after  the  stomach 
has  perished,  or  that  circulation  continues  after 
the  heart  has  ceased  to  beat.^    If  the  soul  and  the 
body  are  independent  of  one  another,  as  used  to 
be  thought,  the  theory  of  immortality,  as  we  have 
said,  is  not  only  reasonable  but  inevitable.     But  if 
the  soul  and  the  body  are  wrapped  up  together  in 
the  mextricable  connection  of  organ  and  function, 


36 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


37 


then  is  the  theory  of  immortaHty  not  only  unrea- 
sonable but  impossible.  Such  is  the  conclusion 
which  has  been  drawn  from  the  new  psychology 
of  our  time — and  it  is  just  because  this  conclusion 
has  become  so  wide-spread  of  recent  years,  and  has 
been  regarded  as  so  axiomatic  in  character,  that 
we  find  such  general  scepticism  abroad  as  to  the 
reality  of  the  immortal  hope. 


VI 


At  first  sight  it  may  seem  that  our  cause  is 
hopeless,  as  there  are  few  intelligent  persons  today 
who  are  not  ready  to  agree  that  the  old  traditional 
psychology,  which  described  the  soul  and  the 
body  as  independent  of  one  another,  is  fundament- 
ally wrong,  and  that  the  new  scientific  psychology, 
which  lays  stress  upon  the  dependence  of  the  soul 
upon  the  body,  is  fundamentally  right.  Any  such 
theory  as  that  which  represents  the  soul  as  some- 
thing apart  from  the  body — which  declares  that 
the  soul  is  put  into  the  body  as  a  pill  might  be  put 
into  a  bottle,  and  that  it  leaves  the  body,  at  the 
moment  of  death,  as  smoke  or  vapour  might  pour 
out  of  a  vessel — would  seem  to  be  certainly  too  pre- 
posterous for  serious  consideration.  The  great  word 
of  modem  science,  in  the  field  of  psychology  as  in 
every  other  field,  is  unity — and  this  applies  to  the 
relation  between  soul  and  body,  as  to  every  other 
vital  relation.  To  subscribe  to  any  such  crude 
utterance  as  that  "  the  brain  secretes  thought  as  the 


liver  secretes  bile,"  or  that  the  mind  is  the  function 
of  the  brain,  in  the  literal  meaning  of  these  phrases, 
is  manifestly  as  impossible  as  it  is  unnecessary! 
But  to  say  that  the  physical  and  spiritual  processes 
of  life  are  parallel,  and  that  there  occurs  no  change 
of  thought  and  feeling  without  a  corresponding 
physical  change  in  the  nervous  system,  is  only  to 
give  assent  to  a  proposition  which  seems  to  be  as 
well  established  as  the  law  of  gravitation  or  the 
Copernican  system  of  the  universe. 

But  is  our  cause  really  so  hopeless  as  might 
appear  upon  the  surface.^     If  what  we  have  been 
saying  is  true,  in  the  obvious  way  in  which  it 
seems  to  be  true,  then  the  immortal  life  must 
certainly  be  regarded  as  an  illusion.     But  is  this 
actually  the  case.^     May  it  not  be  that  we  are 
too  hasty  in  drawing  our  conclusions.^     Is  it  not 
at  least  possible  that  what  seems  to  be  one  thing, 
may  prove  on  closer  examination,  to  be  something 
altogether  different?     I  am  quite  ready  to  agree 
that  the  modern  psychologist  is  correct  in  his 
statement  of  the  facts  in  regard  to  the  dependence 
of  the  mind  upon  the  body ;  but  I  am  by  no  means 
ready  to  argue  from  this  that  he  is  equally  correct 
in  the  interpretation  which  he  places  upon  these 
facts.     That  the  soul  and  the  body  have  developed 
together,  and  now  work  together  in  this  life,  the 
one  apparently   as   a  function   of   the   other,   is 
perfectly  plain.     But  that  this  means  that  'the 
soul  must  end  when  the  body  ends,  and  that  the 
great  hope  of  immortality  is  therefore  a  vain  and 


I 


38 


Is  Death  the  End? 


foolish  dream,  does  not  necessarily  follow  by  any 
manner  of  means.  On  the  contrary,  I  would  beg  to 
point  out  at  once  that  there  are  other  interpreta- 
tions of  these  same  facts,  wholly  consistent  with 
the  idea  that  the  soul  may  survive  after  the  body 
has  perished,  which  are  just  as  reasonable,  and 
therefore  just  as  possible. 

Take,  for  example,  the  fact  of  common  observa- 
tion which  here  underlies  this  whole  philosophy  of 
materialism  that  every  change  in  a  mental  state  is 
accompanied  by  a  parallel  change  in  the  nervous 
system.     That  this  fact  may  be  interpreted  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  the  mind  a  mere  function  of  the 
brain  and  therefore  as  inseparable  from  the  brain 
in  the  corruption  of  death  as  in  the  activities  of 
life,  is  true.     But  it  is  also  true  that  this  interpreta- 
tion is  not  the  only  one  which  is  possible  in  its 
premises,  and  certainly  not  the  one  which  is  most 
probable.     Indeed   other   interpretations   of   this 
phenomenon  are  so  numerous,  and  all  of  them 
backed  by  such  authoritative  names,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  know  which  to  select  for  comparative 
consideration.     There  are  three,  however,  which  I 
venture  to  submit  herewith,  as  possible  alterna- 
tives  of   the   materialistic   thesis,    not   so   much 
because  they  are  the  strongest,  as  because  they 
are  the  ones  with  which  I  chance  to  be  familiar. 
One  is  the  interpretation  offered  by  a  great  evolu- 
tionary  philosopher;  another,   the  interpretation 
offered  by  an  eminent  psychologist;  and  the  third, 
the    interpretation    offered    by    a    distinguished 


An  Open  Question 


39 


physician.  No  one  of  these  thinkers,  it  should  be 
noted,  is  a  churchman,  or  can  be  regarded  as 
holding  any  special  brief  for  religion. 

VII 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  theory  offered 
by  John  Fiske,  in  his  book  entitled  Life  Everlasting. 
Fiske   points   out   most   emphatically   that    the 
doctrine  that  thought  is  a  function  of  the  brain 
is  a  theory  merely,  which  has  not  been  proved  and 
cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  be  proved.     So  far 
as  we  know  from  our  actual  experience,  mental  life 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an  accompaniment— 
or  "concomitant,"  as  he  calls  it— of  the  activities 
of  the  brain.     Our  "state  of  consciousness,*'  he 
says,  '^is  the  subjective  equivalent  of  the  vibration 
within  the  brain,  whereof  it  is  neither  the  cause  nor 
the  effect,  neither  the  producer  nor  the  offspring, 
but  simply  the  concomitant.''^    To  regard  the 
body  as  the  cause  of  the  soul,  or  the  brain  as  the 
producer  of  the  mind,  is  to  make  the  same  mistake 
that  Chantecler  made  in  Rostand's  great  drama, 
when  he  assumed  that  the  rising  sun  was  the  result 
of  his  crowing.     Just  because  two  things  always 
go  along  together  is  no  proof  that  there  is  a  con- 
nection between  them,  or  that  either  one  is  the 
cause  of  the  other,  although  there  is  usually  a 
presumption  that  this  is  the  case.    In  this  instance 
however,  not  even  the  presumption  points  in  this 

'  See  Life  Everlasting,  page  7^. 


40 


Is  Death  the  End? 


direction;  for  if  we  study  the  throng  of  activities 
that  are  perpetually  succeeding  one  another  within 
our  nervous  system,  we  shall  find  that  they  present, 
as  Dr.  Fiske  expresses  it,  "a  closed  circle  which  is 
entirely  physical,  and  in  which  one  segment  be- 
longs to  the  nervous  system. " '     Our  conscious  life 
parallels   this  circle  at  every  point,  but  nowhere 
does  it  form  any  essential  part  of  it.     On  the 
contrary,  this  "conscious  life  stands  entirely  out- 
side of"  the  chain  of  our  sensations  and  activities, 
"concentric  with  the  segment  which  belongs  to 
the  nervous  system,"^  constituting  a  wholly  differ- 
ent succession  of  phenomena.     And  under  these 
circumstances,    of   course,    the   existence    of    the 
latter  is  by  no  means  dependent  upon  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  the  former.     The  body  and  the 
soul — the  brain  and  the  mind — may  be  compared 
to  two  railroad  tracks  which  run  along  through 
a  stretch  of  country  side  by  side.      By  a  person 
looking  at  the  tracks  as  they  run  from  one  horizon 
to  the  other,  it  might  be  supposed  that  they  have 
some  necessary  connection  with  one  another,  and 
that  if  one  track  should  be  destroyed  and  therefore 
come  to  an  end,   the  other  would   immediately 
come  to  an  end  also.     But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
one  track  may  stop  at  any  point,  and  the  other 
proceed  along  indefinitely.     And  so  with  the  mind 
and  the  brain.     Granted  that,  so  far  as  we  can  see 
from  the  horizon  of  birth  to  the  horizon  of  death, 
we  always  find  the  two  things  going  along  together! 

«  See  Life  Everlasting,  page  79.  '  Ibid.,  page  79. 


An  Open  Question 


41 


This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  they  must 
always  go  along  together,  and  that  one  cannot 
exist  without  the  other.  The  "possibility  or  the 
probability  of  the  continuance  of  the  one  without 
the  other, ''  says  Dr.  Fiske,  ^  is  not  affected  at  all  by 
the  fact  that,  within  the  limits  of  our  finite  and 
temporal  experience,  they  are  intimately  connected. 
Concomitance  does  not  necessarily  involve  func- 
tional dependence;  and  therefore  he  concludes 
that  the  question  of  the  survival  of  the  soul  after 
death  must  be  regarded,  from  this  point  of  view 
at  least,  as  an  open  question,  to  be  determined 
by  evidence  which  may  be  gathered  by  further 
inquiry  in  other  directions. 

A  second  interpretation  of  these  phenomena 
is  contained  in  Human  Immortality,  by  Prof. 
William  James.  This  great  psychologist  starts 
out  by  subscribing  frankly  to  the  truth  of  the 
physiological  formula,  that  thought  is  a  function 
of  the  brain.  He  then  proceeds  to  ask,  if  this 
doctrine  logically  compels  us  to  disbelieve  in 
immortality?  And  he  answers  this  question  at 
once  by  declaring,  ''that,  even  though  our  soul's 
life  may  be  in  literal  strictness  the  function  of  a 
brain  that  perishes,  yet  it  is  not  at  all  impossible, 
but  on  the  contrary  quite  possible,  that  the  Hfe 
may  still  continue  when  the  brain  itself  is  dead.  "^ 

This  position  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  be 
inconsistent.     But  James  soon  clears  the  air  by 

^  See  Life  Everlasting,  page  80. 

'  See  Human  Immortality,  pages  9-10. 


42 


Is  Death  the  End? 


asserting  that  the  argument  of  the  materialist  that 
thought  cannot  survive  the  disintegration  of  the 
brain,  because  it  is  a  function  of  the  brain,  is  based 
on  a  superficial  and  inadequate  idea  of  what  we 
mean  by  the  idea  of  "function."  The  materialist 
takes  it  for  granted  that  all  function  is  '^produc- 
tive" in  character;  and  therefore  that  the  brain 
produces  thought,  as  the  tea-kettle  produces  steam, 
or  the  waterfall  produces  power,  or  the  liver  pro- 
duces bile .  ' '  B  ut  in  t he  world  of  physical  nature , ' ' 
says  Prof.  James,  "productive  function  is  not  the 
only  kind  of  function  with  which  we  are  familiar. 
We  have  also  releasing  or  permissive  function; 
and  we  have  transmissive  function.*''  As  an 
example  of  what  he  calls  "releasing  or  permissive 
function, "  he  cites  the  trigger  of  a  crossbow,  which 
"removes  the  obstacle  which  holds  the  string,  and 
lets  the  bow  fly  back  to  its  natural  shape.  "^  As 
an  example  of  transmissive  function,  he  cites  a 
prism  or  refractive  lens,  which  catches  up  the 
energy  of  a  ray  of  light,  and  determines  it  "to  a 
certain  path  and  shape. "  ^  Now  when  we  think  of 
thought  as  a  function  of  the  brain,  "we  are  not 
required  to  think  of  productive  function  only,  but 
are  entitled  to  consider  permissive  or  transmissive 
function.''^  It  may  be  that  the  brain  produces 
thought  as  the  kettle  produces  steam;  but  it  is 
just  as  logical,  and  just  as  fully  in  accord  with 
scientific   knowledge,   to  believe   that   the   brain 


' 


An  Open  Question 


43 


*  See  Human  Immortality,  page  13. 
3  Ibid.,  page  14. 


'  Ibid.,  page  14. 
4  Ibid.,  page  15. 


releases  thought,  as  the  trigger  of  a  bow  releases  the 
arrow,  or  transmits  thought  as  the  prism  transmits 
light.  It  is  to  this  latter  alternative  that  Prof. 
James  inclines.  He  thinks  of  the  natural  universe 
as  a  kind  of  veil,  hiding  and  keeping  back  the  world 
of  genuine  spiritual  reality.  This  veil,  he  contends, 
varies  in  thickness,  in  some  places  shutting  out  the 
spirit  altogether,  and  at  other  places  just  letting 
through  gleams  of  the  radiance  of  the  absolute  life. 
At  one  place  only  does  the  veil  grow  so  thin  that 
the  light  of  the  spirit  may  shine  through — and  this 
place  is  marked  by  the  brain !  The  spiritual  life, 
in  other  words,  is  transmitted  by  the  brain,  and  the 
transmission  is  clear  or  dim,  radiant  or  obscure, 
according  to  the  material  condition  of  the  trans- 
mitting medium.  If  we  adopt  such  a  supposition 
as  this,  he  points  out,  the  Hfe  of  the  soul  must  be 
regarded  as  just  as  much  a  function  of  the  brain, 
as  though  it  were  actually  produced  by  the  brain — 
and  all  the  phenomena  of  interdependence  between 
the  two  are  as  explainable  on  the  one  basis  as 
on  the  other.  "The  theory  of  production,*'  says 
Prof.  James,  "is  not  a  jot  more  simple  or  credible 
in  itself  than  any  other  conceivable  theory."  It 
may  be  difficult  to  conceive  how  the  brain  can  be 
an  organ  for  limiting  and  determining  a  conscious- 
ness which  is  produced  somewhere  else,  but  it  is 
equally  difficult,  to  say  the  least,  to  conceive 
"how  (the  brain)  can  be  an  organ  for  producing 
consciousness  out  of  whole  cloth.  For  polemic 
purposes    the    two    theories    are    exactly  on   a 


4 


44 


Is  Death  the  End? 


par." '  The  difference  between  the  two  lies  only  in 
the  fact  that,  if  the  function  of  the  brain  be  inter- 
preted as  transmissive,  the  conception  of  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  becomes  at  once  not  only 
possible  but  probable.  According  to  this  idea, 
indeed,  there  is  no  more  reason  why  the  soul 
should  be  regarded  as  dead  when  the  body 
perishes,  than  that  the  Hght  of  the  sun  should  be 
regarded  as  extinguished  when  the  glass  in  my 
window,  which  transmits  it,  is  covered  by  a 
curtain. 

Lastly,  and  most  important,  as  a  possible  inter- 
pretation of  the  meaning  of  this  close  psychological 
relation  between  soul  and  body,  I  would  refer  to 
that  remarkable  book  entitled  BratJi  and  Person- 
ality,   by   Dr.   W.   H.   Thomson,   of  New  York. 
It  is  quite  impossible,  in  the  limited  space  here 
at  my  disposal,  to  give  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
argument  which  this  book  presents ;  and  especially 
is  it  hopeless  to  attempt  to  convey  the   wealth 
of  exact  and  thorough  scientific  knowledge  with 
which  its  pages  are  crowded.     Suffice  it  to  say, 
that  here  in  this  book  we  have  the  testimony  of 
a  most  distinguished  physician,  who  has  spent  a 
lifetime  in  the  study  of  the  anatomy  of  the  brain 
and  of  the  psychological  processes  of  brain  activity, 
and  who  recognizes  the  validity  of  all  that  has  been 
discovered  and  formulated  in  regard  to  the  material 
interdependence  of  mind  and  brain,  and  yet  who 
offers,  as  the  natural  conclusion  of  his  experience 

^  See  Human  Immortality,  page  22. 


An  Open  Question  45 

and  observation,  an  interpretation  of  what  it  all 
means  which  is  exactly  opposite  to  that  which  has 
usually  been  offered.     He  agrees  absolutely  with 
the  material  facts  which   have   been  discovered 
by  the  new  psychology.     Our  various  faculties  of 
thought  and  emotion,  which  make  up  what  we 
know  as  the  mental  life,  are  absolutely  dependent 
he  says,  not  only  upon  the   brain,  but,  as  we 
have  seen,  upon  specific  parts  of  the  brain      It  is 
through  the  so-called  mind  areas  of  brain  matter 
that  a    human  being  knows  what  to  think  about 
the  information  which  his  senses  bring.     Cut  out 
any  one  of  these  areas,  and  forthwith  its  particular 
Kind  of  intelligence  is  gone." 

All  this  sounds  familiar  enough.     But  how  is  this 
to  be  explained.?     It  is  when  we  come  to  Dr 
Thomson  s  answer  to  this  question  that  we  en- 
counter something  new.     The  ordinary  answer  is 
as  we  have  seen,  that  thought  is  the  product  of  the 
brain.     But  Dr.  Thomson  reverses  this  conclusion 
by  declaring  that  the  facts  can  only  be  explained 
on  the  theory  that  the  brain  is  the  product  of 
thought.     How  are  you  going  to  explain  a  man, 
he  asks,  on  any  other  hypothesis?    Here,  on  the 
one  hand,  is  the  brain  of  an  anthropoid  ape,  and 
here,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  brain  of  a  man. 
Physically  the  gap  between  the  two  pieces  of 
mechanism  is  so  insignificant  that  it  takes  an 
expert  to  tell  the  difference  between  the  two.     But 
think  of  the  difference  between  the  two  beings  to 
whom  the  brains  belong-the  one  using  the  brain 


!i 


r^ 


40 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


47 


merely  to  register  sensations  and  express  impulses, 
and  the  other  using  the  almost  similar  piece  of 
mental  machinery  to  conceive  of  a  Panama  Canal, 
to  send  wireless  despatches  through  the  air,  to 
write  a  Hamlet,  to  compose  a  Tristan  und  Isolde, 
to  speak  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount!    The  brain 
of  man,  says  Dr.  Thomson,  does  not  account  for 
man.     The  only  thing  which  can  account  for  him 
and  his  achievements  is  the  presence  of  a  "Some- 
thing'* within  his  being  which  seizes  upon  the 
brain,  molds  it  to  its  purposes,  and  uses  it  as  a  tool 
for  the  expression  of  its  desire.     This  '  *  Something '  * 
may  be  variously  described  as  the  Self,  or  the  Will, 
or  the  Personality,  or  the  Soul.     But  whatever  it 
may  be  termed,  it  is  a  spiritual  reality,  which  is 
independent  of  the  body,  and  which  uses  the  brain 
as  an  engineer  uses  his  engine.     ''We  make  our 
own   brains,"   says   Dr.   Thomson.'     We  inherit 
from  the  past  a  piece  of  mechanism,  which   is 
no  higher,  so  far  as  its  physical  properties  are 
concerned,  than  that  possessed  by  the  ape.     Then 
our  Personahty,  or  Soul,  seizes  upon  it,  and  by 
sheer  force  of  will  creates  those  areas  of  brain 
material  which  seem  to  be  the  sources  of  our 
thought.     '*  Human  brain  matter  does  not  become 
human  in  its  powers  until  that  Something  within 
takes  it  in  hand  to  fashion  it." 

I  wish  it  w^ere  possible  to  describe  here  in  detail 
the  beautiful  array  of  facts  which  Dr.  Thomson 
marshalls  before  us  for  the  demonstration  of  this 

*  See  Brain  and  Personality,  page  223. 


1 


{ 


interpretation   of   mental   phenomena.     One   in- 
stance only  I  can  mention— and  this  the  most 
impressive  of  all— namely,  that  of  Helen  Keller. 
Here  he  tells  us  was  a  brain,  which  was  shut  off 
from  all  connection  with  the  outer  world,  and  was 
nothing,  therefore,  but  the  brain  of  an  animal 
Early  in  her  life,   Miss  Keller's   teacher,   Miss 
Sullivan,  set  herself  to  work  to  reach  Miss  Keller's 
brain  and  awaken  it.    After  long  and  patient  effort 
this  was  done,  and  the  little  child  was  aroused  to 
self-consciousness.     Then  Miss  SulUvan  persuaded 
Miss  Keller's  personality  to  undertake  the  work 
of  producing  a  human  brain.     And  thus  little  by 
httle,  two  determined  wills,  or  personalities,  the 
one  outside  and  the  other  inside,  transformed  this 
mechanism  into  a  human  machine,  and  made  it 
the  willing  instrument  of  the  woman  who  is  now 
the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the  world.     Miss 
Keller  made  her  own  brain,  by  sheer  power  of  will 
or  personality.     "By  practice,  practice,  practice, 
the  will  stimulus  organized  the  brain  centres  to 
perform   new   functions."    And    what   she   did, 
under  extraordinary  circumstances,  we  are  doing 
all  the  time,  says  Dr.  Thomson,  under  ordinary 
circumstances.     Considering  that  it  is  not  brain 
which  makes  man,  says  this  eminent  physician, 
but  man  which  makes  his  brain  human,  in  its 
mental  faculties,  "I  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  if  a  human  personality  would  enter  a  young 
chimpanzee's    brain,    where    it    would    find    all 
the    required    cerebral    convolutions,    that    ape 


48 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


49 


could    then    grow    into     a    true    inventor    or 
philosopher."' 

In  all  this,  as  we  can  see,  Dr.  Thomson  exactly 
reverses    the    materialistic    position.     From    his 
point  of  view,  not  the  material  brain,  but  the 
spiritual   personality,    is   the   great   and   original 
thing.     This    personality,    he    declares,    has    the 
same  relation  to  the  brain  as  a  chauffeur  to  an 
automobile.     Or,  to  quote  another  of  his  figures, 
the  brain  is  the  instrument  of  the  thinker,  exactly 
like  the  hand.     Of  course,  so  far  as  vital  phe- 
nomena are  concerned,   the  personality  and  its 
instrument  always  appear  together,  for  the  person- 
ality is  dependent  upon  the  mechanism  of  the 
brain  for  the  expression  of  its  thought,  just  as  the 
chauffeur  is  dependent  upon  his  machine  for  quick 
movement  from  one  place  to  another.     But  this 
close  relation   of   dependence  between   soul   and 
body,  does  not  mean  that  the  personaHty  cannot 
exist  without  the  brain,  or  that  it  must  necessarily 
end  when  the  brain  ends.     It  would  be  just  as 
reasonable  to  think  of  a  chauffeur  being  unable  to 
exist  away  from  his  automobile,   or  necessarily 
dying  when  his  machine  is  sent  to  the  scrap-heap. 
All  of  which  means,  does  it  not,  that  in  essence 
the  personality,  or  the  self,  is  independent  of  the 
body   which   it  uses,    and   thus   able   to   survive 
the  body;  and  hence,  for  all  that  we  know  to  the 
contrary,  may  very  well  be  immortal.     It  is  to 
this  assertion  that   Dr.   Thomson  comes  in  the 

'  See  Brain  and  Personality,  page  239. 


4 


closing  pages  of  his  book.  Death,  he  says,  is  like 
sleep.  In  both  cases,  the  personality  is  absent 
from  its  instrument,  the  body.  In  the  one  case,  it 
returns;  in  the  other,  it  does  not  return.  But  it 
is  no  more  probable  that  personality  is  extinguished 
after  death,  while  it  is  permanently  absent,  than 
that  it  is  extinguished  during  sleep,  while  it  is 
temporarily  absent.  We  sleep— but  after  sleep 
we  wake ! 


VIII 


Here,  now,  are  three  striking  interpretations  of 
that  strange  interrelation  in  this  life  between  soul 
and  body,  the  discovery  of  which  constitutes  one 
of  the  most  important  contributions  of  the  new 
psychology  to  modern  knowledge.     All  start  out 
with  a  full  acceptance  of  the  reality  of  this  intimate 
connection  between  mental  processes  and  brain 
mechanism.     But    all    refuse    to    recognize  the 
validity  of  that  interpretation  of  this  connection 
which  makes  the  existence  of  the  former  dependent 
upon  the  existence  of  the  latter,  and  thus  end 
with  what  certainly  seems  to  be  the  closest  kind 
of  an  approximation  to  the  basic  proposition  of 
the  old  psychology,  that  mind  and  brain— or  soul 
and  body— are  fundamentally  independent.  Fiske 
presents  the  theory  of  concomitants;  James,  the 
theory  of  permissive  or  transmissive  function,  as 
contrasted   with    productive  function;    Thomson 
the  theory  of  personality  as  the  creator  and  user  of 


1 


50 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


51 


brain  material.     Of  all  these  doctrines,   it   may 
be  said  that,  if  they  are  worthy  of  any  credence  at 
all,  they  go  far  toward  demonstrating  the  surpris- 
ing fact  that  the  old  psychology  and  the  new  are 
not  so  far  apart  in  their  essential  features  as  we 
have  been  taught  to  believe.     The  old  psychology 
was    undoubtedly    blind    to    certain    remarkable 
phenomena  of  mental  dependence  upon  physical 
organism,  and  thus  described  the  soul  as  free  in 
a  sense  which  was  never  true  so  far  as  this  present 
earthly  existence  is  concerned.     These  phenomena 
the  new  psychology  discovered  and  observed,  and 
thus  was  enabled  to  correct  the  exaggerations  and 
inaccuracies  inherent  in  the  old  ideas.     But  in  so 
doing  it  went  to  an  opposite  extreme,  and,  on  the 
basis  of  the  certain  fact  of  the  dependence  of  the 
soul  upon  the  body  in  this  present  life,  for  which  it 
had  abundant  evidence,  affirmed  the  very  uncer- 
tain fact  of  the  necessary  and  therefore  continued 
dependence  of  the  soul  upon  the  body  after  death, 
of  which  it  had  no  evidence  whatsoever.     Now  at 
last  are  we  getting  back  to  the  middle  ground  of 
sanity.     That  the  facts  of  the  new  psychology 
are  true,  nobody  thinks  today  of  denying.     But 
that  these  facts  are  consistent  only  with  a  mate- 
rialistic interpretation  of  human  life  is  being  more 
widely  and  more  emphatically  denied  every  hour. 
On  the  contrary,  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  there 
are  numerous  ways  in  which  these  facts  can  be 
interpreted  in  harmony  with  the  old  spiritualistic 
thesis  which  was  the  crown  and  glory  of  the  old 


I 


I 


psychology.  Crude  this  psychology  certainly  was. 
It  was  oblivious  of  a  myriad  of  vital  facts;  and  it 
misunderstood  woefully  the  facts  of  which  it  was 
aware.  Now  we  see  these  facts,  and  are  beginning 
to  understand  them.  And  lo!  "the  paradox, 
which  comforts  while  it  mocks" — that  the  new 
facts  are  leading  us  straight  back  to  the  old  con- 
clusion of  the  reality  of  things  spiritual ! 


IX 


And  now,  what  have  we  accomplished  by  our 
long  discussion  of  this  vexing  problem?  Have 
we  proved  that  the  spiritualistic  interpretation  of 
the  great  fact  of  the  interrelation  of  mind  and 
body,  as  opposed  to  the  materialistic  interpretation, 
is  true,  and  that  immortality  therefore  is  a  reality? 
Not  at  all!  At  this  point  in  our  argument  at 
least,  the  question  of  the  eternal  life  still  remains 
unanswered. 

What  we  have  done  is  this!  We  have  taken  up, 
without  any  dodging  of  the  facts,  the  only  serious 
argument  which  has  ever  been  advanced  against 
the  possible  reality  of  the  immortal  life,  and  shown 
that  this  argument  is  not  conclusive.  Science 
has  undertaken  to  demonstrate  a  negation,  and 
we  have  shown  that  this  attempt  has  ignominiously 
failed.  This  does  not  mean  that  immortality  has 
been  proved.  But  it  does  mean  that  immortality 
has  not  been  disproved.  It  means  that  the 
intellect,  on  the  basis  of  all  known  data  bearing 


.JzSi-^-  *« 


JS£'^ 


52 


Is  Death  the  End? 


An  Open  Question 


53 


upon  the  problem,  confesses  its  inability  to  affirm 
and  its  equal  inability  to  deny.     It  means  that  the 
field  is  open  for  further  inquiry ;  and  that  we  have 
the    right— nay    the    duty— to    consider   all    the 
probabilities  in  the  case.     As  John  Fiske  expresses 
it,  we  have  removed  ''the  only  serious  objection 
that  has  ever  been  alleged  against"  the  immortal 
hope,  and  thus  cleared  the  field  "for  those  general 
considerations  of  philosophic  analogy  and  moral 
probability  which  are  all  the  grounds  upon  which 
we  can  call  for  help  in  this  arduous  inquiry."^ 
For  thousands  of  years  men  have  believed  in  the 
immortaUty  of  the  soul,  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  Hfe.  A  thousand  considerations 
based  on  analogies  of  nature,  suggestions  of  ex- 
perience,  instincts  of  the  mind,  impulses  of  the 
heart,  prophecies  of  the  soul,  have  moved  men  to 
the  acceptance  of  this  great  hope.     Philosophers 
have  argued  that  it  must  be  true ;  poets  have  sung 
of  the  beauty  of  its  reahty;  preachers  have  sum- 
moned the  soul  to  prepare  for  its  certain  coming. 
''God  created  man  to  be  immortal  "—this  has 
been  the  faith  of  all  the  ages  gone.     Only  within 
our  own  time  has  doubt  been  cast  upon  the  reality 
of  the  expectation  by  a  new  scientific  theory  of  the 
soul,  which  has  been  inconsistent  with  our  faith. 
But  now  is  this  theory  matched  by  others  no  less 
rational,  with  which  the  immortal  hope  is  con- 
sistent.    Thus  may  we  Hsten  again  to  the  analogies 
and  arguments,  the  hopes  and  prophecies,  of  the 

»  See  Life  Everlasting,  page  81. 


ages,  and  be  persuaded,  if  we  find  them  to  have 
the  power  to  persuade.  William  James  sums  up 
our  whole  accomplishment  at  this  point  in  our  dis- 
cussion, when  he  says:  "In  strict  logic,  the  fangs 
of  the  cerebralistic  materialism  are  drawn.  My 
words  ought  already  to  exert  a  releasing  function 
on  your  hopes.  You  may  believe  henceforward, 
whether  you  care  to  profit  by  the  permission  or 
not."^ 

^  See  Human  Immortality ^  page  19. 


j 


CHAPTER  III 

INTIMATIONS    OF   IMMORTALITY 

"Precisely  what  is  unexpressed  here,  then,  in  our 
world  of  mortal  glimpses  of  truth,  precisely  what  is 
sought  and  longed  for,  but  never  won,  in  this  our 
human  form  of  consciousness,  just  that  is  interpreted, 
is  developed  into  its  true  wholeness,  is  now  in  its 
fitting  form,  and  is  expressed,  in  all  the  rich  variety 
of  individual  meaning  that  love  here  seeks,  but  cannot 
find,  and  is  expressed  too  as  a  portion,  unique,  con- 
scious, and  individual,  of  an  Absolute  Life  that  even 
now  pulsates  in  every  one  of  our  desires  for  the  ideal 
and  for  the  individual.  We  all  even  now  really  dwell 
in  this  realm  of  a  reality  that  is  not  visible  to  human 
eyes.  ...  Of  this  our  true  life,  our  present  life  is 
a  glimpse,  a  fragment,  a  hint,  and  in  its  best  moments 
a  visible  beginning.  That  this  individual  life  of  all  of 
us  is  not  something  limited  in  its  temporal  experience 
to  the  life  that  now  we  experience,  follows  from  the 
very  fact  that  here  nothing  final  is  found  expressed." — 
Josiah  Royce,  in  The  Conception  of  Immortality^ 
pages  74-75. 


THE  question  of  immortality  is  now  open  for 
consideration.  We  can  believe  in  immortal- 
ity if  we  can  find  any  good  reasons  for  so  doing. 
This  brings  us  at  once  to  the  inquiry  as  to  whether 
there  are  any  arguments  which  may  be  offered  in 
support  of  a  favourable  answer.     Are  there  any 

54 


Intimations  of  Immortality         55 

grounds  for  believing  that  the  theory  of  a  life 
beyond  the  grave  is  a  more  rational,  or  less  irra- 
tional, hypothesis  than  the  theory  that  death  is  the 
end?    Are  there  any  intimations  within  our  own 
hearts  of  a   continued  existence  which  can   be 
regarded  as  having  validity?    Is  there  any  argu- 
ment, or  experience,  or  revelation  which  can  be 
accepted,  in  the  absence  of  positive  proof,  as  good 
circumstantial  evidence  of  the  doctrine  of  eternity, 
as  similar  evidence  is  accepted  under  similar  con- 
ditions, for  example,  in  a  court  of  law?   Prophets, 
poets,  philosophers  have  been  offering  their  be- 
lief in  immortality  from  the  very  earliest  periods 
of  history  down  to  our  own  time,  and  in  these 
affirmations  is  to  be  found  much  of  the  noblest 
literature  of  the   worid.     But   in   all  the  many 
statements  which  these  men  have  given  of  their 
visions,  hopes,  and  speculations,  are  there  any 
definite,  clear-cut  declarations  which  can  stand  the 
acid  test  of  reason?    The  question  is  open— but 
has  one  suggestion  of  either  mind  or  heart  ever 
been  offered,  which  can  justify  us  in  forming  a 
definitely  favourable  conclusion? 


First  of  all,  before  coming  to  the  enumeration  of 
the  many  excellent  reasons  which  can  be  found  for 
accepting  the  reality  of  the  immortal  hope,  let  me 
point  out  one  significant  fact  which  cannot  safely 
be  disregarded  in  any  discussion  of  this  general 


56 


Is  Death  the  End? 


problem.     I  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  greatest 

( thinkers,  wisest  sages,  and  most  inspired  prophets 

\of  all  ages  have  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the 

(soul  as  one  of  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  human 

life.     This  agreement  is  by  no  means  unanimous, 

of  course,  as  a  long  line  of  doubters  or  deniers  from 

Epicurus  to  Hugo  Munsterberg  clearly  indicates. 

^  But  it  is  nevertheless  only  sober  truth  to  affirm 

)that  the  consensus  of  the  best  thought  and  the 

profoundest  emotion  is  indubitably  favourable  to 

the  idea  that  death  is  not  the  end. 

This  fact  I  call  important  for  the  reason  that 
wide  knowledge  and  deep  thought  must  be  regarded 
as  authontativc  in  this  field  of  speculation  as  in 
ever>'  other.    When  we  study  a  question  in  astron- 
omy, for  e.KampIc— «uch  a  quctstion  as  that  pcr- 
Uining  to  the  ultimate  destiny  of  this  planet  upon 
which  we  are  now  swinging  through  the  c^idless 
itaches  of  cosmic  space— wc  oon^ilt  "the  author- 
ities upon  the  subject,"  as  wc  call  them;  that  is, 
the  men  who,  as  special  students  of  astronomy, 
ai^  convcreant  with  all  the  facts,  and  arc  com- 
petent, therefore,  to  give  judgment  in  a  problem 
upon  which  no  man  can  speak  with  absolute 
assurance.    And    if    there    is    any  diversity  of 
opinion,  what  do  we  do  but  find  what  is  the  con- 
sensus of  the  best  thought,  and  follow  Uiat?    Or, 
to  turn  to  a  question  somewhat  more  closely 
analogous  to  that  which  is  before  us  for  discussion 
in  this  book,  suppose  %ve  are  investigating  the 
pcrcnnial  enigma  of  free-will  and  determinism  I 


Intimations  of  ImmorUility         57 

Do  we  not  do  the  same  thing  here  that  we  do  in  the 
field  of  astronomy — namely,  consult  autl>oritics 
upon  the  subject,  from  Plato  and  Arislolle  in 
ancient  times  to  Mill,  Spencer,  and  jame$  in 
modem  times;  find  out  what  conclusion  these 
great  thinkers  have  rKiched,  and  then  form  our 
opinions  on  the  baste  of  what  seems  to  be  the 
weight  of  testimony?  In  all  such  cases  as  these, 
of  course,  we  carry  on  independent  researches  of 
our  own — or  should  do  so.  But  however  xealous 
and  efficient  we  may  be  in  the  pursuit  of  our 
personal  investigations,  we  cannot  safely  remain 
ignorant  of  what  the  greatest  thinkers  liavc 
concluded,  nor  ignore  their  conclusions  in  the 
formation  of  our  own  judgments. 

Now  why  should  wc  not  follow  eocactly  this 
same  course  in  dealing  \rith  this  peculiarly  balHing 
problem  of  immortality?  Wliy  sliould  wc  not, 
at  Hkj  outset  at  least  of  our  study  of  this  question, 
$eek  the  opinions  of  those  wIm)  are  competent  to 
Speak?  And  if  wc  do  this,  whril  do  wc  find  if  not 
that  the  majority  of  the  world's  gR'^itest  thinkers 
and  wisest  prophets  have  believed  implicitly  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul?  So  impressive  is 
this  majority  indeed,  and  so  supreme  the  authority 
of  the  individuals  composing  it,  that,  if  there  were 
no  other  reason  for  believing  in  the  reality  of  this 
hope,  there  might  be  valid  excuse  for  accepting  this 
as  all-sufficient.  Whcm  we  run  through  the  mighty 
catalogue  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  philosopliers. 
the  distinguished  r6lc  of  the  metaphysicians  and 


58 


Is  Death  the  End? 


speculative  theologians  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
overwhelming  array  of  modem  thinkers  from 
Descartes  and  Spinoza  to  T.  H.  Green  and  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge;  when  we  scan  the  stupendous  Hst 
of  the  religious  leaders  of  our  race  from  the  pro- 
phets of  ancient  Israel  to  the  preachers  of  modem 
Protestantism;  when  we  meditate  on  how  poets 
have  sung,  and  seers  have  had  their  visions,  and 
wisemen  have  made  their  logical  deductions ;  when 
we  find  philosophers,  theologians,  prophets,  priests, 
poets,  seers,  all  arrayed  upon  the  side  of  the 
immortal  hope — the  brains  of  unnumbered  ages 
and  uncounted  nations  placed,  almost  with  one 
accord,  in  this  pan  of  the  balances;  may  we  not 
be  pardoned,  perhaps,  for  feeling  convinced,  and 
asking  for  no  higher  evidence?  If  the  immortal 
hope  is  indeed  a  snare  and  a  delusion,  then  at  least, 
as  James  Martineau  has  eloquently  pointed  out, 

We  know  who  are  those  who  are  mistaken.  Not  the 
mean  and  grovelling  souls  who  never  reached  to  so 
great  a  thought;  not  the  drowsy  and  easy  natures, 
who  are  content  with  the  sleep  of  sense  through  Hfe, 
and  the  sleep  of  darkness  ever  after;  not  those  of 
selfish  conscience,  of  small  thought,  and  smaller  love. 
No  .  .  .  the  deceived  are  the  great  and  holy,  whom 
all  men  revere;  the  men  who  have  lived  for  something 
better  than  their  happiness  and  spent  themselves  on 
the  altar  of  human  good.  Whom  are  we  to  reverence, 
and  what  can  we  believe,  if  the  inspirations  of  the  high- 
est created  natures  are  but  cunningly-devised  fables.* 

»  See  Endeavours  after  the  Christian  Life  (Am.  Ed.),  page  117. 


Intimations  of  Immortality         59 

In  his  illuminating  little  book  on  Science  and 
Immortality,  referred  to  above.  Dr.  WilHam  Osier 
quotes  Cicero  as  declaring,  in  reference  to  the 
question  of  immortality,  that  he  had  rather  be 
wrong  with  Plato  than  right  with  those  who  deny. 
''This,''  adds  the  great  physician,   ''is  my  own 
confessio  fidei/''     That  this  is  an  extreme,  and 
therefore,    logically    speaking,    an     inadmissible 
statement,  goes  without  saying.     But  it  at  least 
serves  the  admissible  purpose,  and  therefore  has 
the  rhetorical  excuse,  of  indicating  with  startHng 
force  the  overwhelming  significance  of  the  histor- 
ical fact  that  the  finest  intellects,  bravest  hearts, 
and  most  exalted  souls  have  united  in  declaring 
that  man  was  not  bom  to  die! 


II 


It  is  manifestly  impossible,  however,  to  decide 
our  question  here,  no  matter  how  great  the  degree 
of  our  personal  conviction  upon  the  ground  just 
stated.  No  progress  in  thought  would  ever  be 
achieved,  did  not  men,  while  paying  reverent 
tribute  to  all  the  thinkers  who  have  preceded  them, 
go  straight  to  the  original  facts  and  there  gather  at 
first  hand  the  material  out  of  which  to  construct 
the  edifice  of  their  own  thought.  We  must  return, 
therefore,  to  our  original  inquiry  as  to  whether 
there  are  any  good  reasons  for  believing  in  immor- 
tality.    What  considerations  have  persuaded  the 

^  See  Science  and  Immortality,  page  43. 


6o 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Intimations  of  Immortality         6i 


great  majority  of  the  best  thinkers  of  the  past  to 
accept  this  faith;  what  new  considerations,  if 
any,  have  appeared  in  our  own  day;  and  what 
vaHdity,  if  any,  have  these  considerations,  old  and 
new,  for  the  mind  of  the  modem  man? 

Most  famiHar  of  the  arguments  for  the  reality 
of  the  eternal  Hfe  is,  of  course,  the  plea  which  is 
based  upon  the  universality  of  the  belief.  All 
men,  it  is  said,  have  always  believed  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul. 

All  men  desire  to  be  immortal  [says  Theodore  Parker]. 
This  desire  is  instinctive,  natural,  universal.  .  .  . 
It  belongs  to  the  human  race.  You  may  find  nations 
so  rude  that  they  live  houseless  in  caverns  of  the  earth, 
nations  that  have  no  letters,  not  knowing  the  use  of 
bows  and  arrows,  fire,  or  even  clothes,  but  no  nation 
without  a  belief  in  immortal  life. ' 

It  is  the  very  universaHty  of  this  great  idea  in  the 
history  of  the  human  race,  its  very  persistence  in 
the  face  of  every  doubt  and  every  denial,  its 
repeated  resurrection  in  the  hearts  of  men  after 
its  entombment  by  atheistical  philosophy  or 
materialistic  science — it  is  this  which  constitutes 
the  best  possible  proof  that  the  immortal  life  is 
not  a  futile  superstition,  but  a  faith  corresponding 

to  reality. 

As   ordinarily   stated — namely,    that   belief   in 
the  immortal  life  constitutes  a  conception  which  is 

»  See  A  Sermon  on  Immortal  Life  (Centenary  Edition),  vol.  iii., 
page  320. 


universal  in  human  thought— this  argument,  to  my 
mind,  has  very  little  cogency.  And  this  for  two 
reasons ! 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  hope  of, 
or  belief  in,  immortality  has  ever  been  quite  so 
universal  as  we  imagine.     The  greatest    minds, 
as  we  have  seen,  have  always  concerned  themselves 
with  this  problem,  and  most  of  them  have  been 
lifted    to    the    acceptance   of   the    eternal   hope. 
But  Dr.  Osier's  affirmation  that  "the  desire  for 
immortality  seems  never  to  have  had  a  very  strong 
hold  upon  mankind,  and  the  belief  is  less  widely 
held  than  is  usually  stated,  "^  is  not  without  some 
basis  in  fact.     Certainly  there  has  always  been 
a  respectable  minority  which  has  doubted  and  in 
some   cases   denied.     No   nobler  defence  of   the 
doctrine  was  ever  penned  than  the  famous  passage 
found  in  the  Apocryphal  book  of  The  Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  beginning  with  the  majestic  line,  "God 
created  man  to  be  immortal;"  but  nothing  is  more 
evident  than  the  fact  that  this  passage  was  con- 
ceived and  written  by  the  author  in  answer  to 
certain  teachers  of  his  day  who  were  declaring 
"  that  there  is  no  healing  when  a  man  cometh  to  his 
end,  neither  was  any  man  known  to  return  from 
the  grave. "     Nor  have  these  sceptics  always  been 
"the  ungodly,"  as  this  author  somewhat  rashly 
asserts,  or  those  whom  "their  own  ignorance  hath 
blinded. "  ^    On  the  contrary,  these  doubters  have 

'  See  Science  and  Immortality,  page  9. 

'  See  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  chaps,  ii.  and  iii. 


4 


62 


Is  Death  the  End? 


sometimes  been  the  purest  and  noblest  of  men,  and 
sometimes  too,  men  of  transcendent  intellectual 
power  and  far-reaching  knowledge.  In  short,  a 
candid  study  of  human  experience  and  an  unpre- 
judiced survey  of  human  thought,  shows  beyond 
all  question  that  belief  in  immortaHty,  as  a 
fixed  conviction  of  the  soul,  is  by  no  means  as 
universal  as  has  many  times  been  declared.  Man's 
doubt  upon  this  question  is  at  least  as  persistent 
if  not  as  impressive  as  his  faith;  and  his  suspicion, 
or  fear,  that  it  is  a  delusion  is  well-nigh  as  char- 
acteristic as  his  hope  that  it  is  a  reality.  The 
voices  of  the  dissenters  and  questioners  are  by  no 
means  as  numerous  nor  as  eloquent  as  those  upon 
the  other  side,  but  they  are  a  part  of  the  great 
chorus  of  humanity  all  the  same,  and  must  not  be 
disregarded  in  our  estimate  of  this  intimation. 

But  there  is  a  second  reason  why  the  universality 
of  the  immortal  hope,  which  has  been  so  frequently 
assumed,  has  little  cogency  as  an  argument  for  its 
vaHdity.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  universal 
acceptance  of  an  opinion  or  idea,  has  no  essential 
connection  with  its  truth,  and  cannot  be  accepted 
therefore  as  an  evidence  of  its  truth.  Suppose, 
for  example,  that  assent  to  the  conception  of 
immortality  were  really  as  unanimous  as  has  some- 
times been  supposed.  What  reason  have  we  for 
believing,  upon  the  basis  of  this  fact,  that  the  con- 
ception corresponds  to  reality?  There  was  a  time 
when  men  believed  that  the  heavens  were  peopled 
with  gods,  the  forests  with  nymphs  and  dryads, 


Intimations  of  Immortality         63 

the  sea  with  mighty  monsters,  but  this  did  not 
prove   that   these   strange   beings   were   actually 
existent.     There  was  a  time  when  men  beHeved 
m  miracles,  but  this  belief  did  not  alter  by  a  single 
hair's  breadth  the  unvarying  uniformity  of  law. 
There  was  a  time  when  men  believed  that  the  sun 
moved  round  the  earth  and  that  the  earth  itself 
was  flat,  but  it  only  needed  the  telescope  of  Coper- 
nicus  and  the  Santa  Maria  of  Columbus  to  show 
to  men  their  error.     And  why  may  not  the  same 
thmg  be  true  of  this  idea  of  immortality?    Why 
should  we  not  be  finally  undeceived  upon  this 
matter  as  we  have  already  been  undeceived  upon 
so  many  other  matters  to  which  we  have  given  our 
unanimous  assent?     Why  may  not  the  immortal 
hope  be  only  one  of  the  last  of  that  long  succession 
of  superstitions,  dreams,  and  errors,  from  which 
it  has  been  the  lot  of  man  to  be  delivered  one  by 
one?    What,  after  all,  is  the  history  of  human 
development  upon  the  mental  side,  but  the  amaz- 
ing  story  of  man's  perpetual  disillusionment?    A 
thousand   views   of  life  and   destiny  have  been 
accepted  by  the  human  mind  as  the  unquestioned 
mterpretation  of  things  seen  and  heard  and  felt, 
only  to  be  swept  away  by  the  discovery  of  wonders 
beneficent  or  dreadful,  of  which  man  has  never  even 
dreamed.^    Again  and  again  has  he  been  made  to 
see  that  ''things  are  not  what  they  seem"— that 
his  vision  deceives,  his  heart  betrays,  his  mind 
fails  to  understand.     Again  and  again  has  he  been 
obliged  to  tear  down  his  whole  philosophy  of  life 


1 

4 


I 


64 


Is  Death  the  End? 


and  build  anew  from  the  foundation  up.  Again 
and  again  has  he  seen  his  surest  ideas  and  finest 
hopes  cast  ruthlessly  into  the  ash-heap,  and  his 
mind  swept  clean  of  every  familiar  and  well-loved 
article  of  faith.  And  if  this  has  been  man's 
experience  with  all  his  other  early  and  universal 
beliefs,  why  should  he  hope  to  be  spared  this 
which  is  the  last  and  oldest  rehc  of  them  all? 

It  is  for  reasons  such  as  these  that  man's  belief  in 
immortahty,  whether  it  be  universal  or  otherwise, 
cannot  be  regarded  in  itself  as  offering  a  definite 
or  conclusive  argument  for  the  reality  of  the  life 
beyond  the  grave.     We  come  face  to  face  with  a 
very  different  consideration,  however,  when  we 
look  upon  the  immortal  hope  not  as  a  belief  to  be 
accepted  but  as  an  idea  to  be  explained.     For  the 
idea  of  immortality,  whatever  may  be  said  about 
the  acceptance  of  the  idea,  is  a  phenomenon  which 
is  universal.     It  may  be  that  there  have  been  men 
who  have  disbeHeved  in  the  eternal  life,  and  have 
banished  it  from  their  thoughts  and  desires;  but 
never  yet  has  there  been  a  man  who  has  not  found 
the  conception  within  his  heart,  and  been  chal- 
lenged to  ponder  and  answer  the  problems  which 
it  has  raised.     Those  who  have  denied  their  belief 
in  immortality  most  vigorously  have  oftentimes 
been  the  ones  who  have  met  the  idea  of  immortality 
most  nearly  and  felt  it  most  deeply.     Every  denial, 
indeed,  of  the  reality  of  the  idea  has  only  been 
added  confirmation  of  the  presence  of  the  idea 
within  the  soul  as  a  problem  of  thought  and  a 


1 

i 
i 


Intimations  of  Immortality         65 

condition  of  life.  In  every  age,  in  every  church, 
in  every  race,  in  every  solitary  bosom,  has  the 
conception  appeared— "a  fact  of  man's  nature," 
says  Theodore  Parker,  "and  a  part  of  the  universe, 
just  as  the  sun  is  a  fact  of  the  heavens  and  a  part 
of  the  universe."  The  idea  of  immortality,  he 
asserts  with  perfect  accuracy,  is 

an  ontological  fact  and  belongs  essentially  to  the  be- 
ing of  man,  just  as  the  eye  is  a  physiological  fact  and 
belongs  to  the  body  of  man ....  It  is  written  in 
human  nature;  written  there  so  plain  that  the  rudest 
nations  have  not  failed  to  find  it;  .  .  .  written  just 
as  much  as  form  is  written  in  the  circle,  and  extension 
on  matter  in  general  ...  As  a  man  attains  con- 
sciousness  of  himself,  he  attains  consciousness  of  his 
immortality.  ...  It  comes  as  naturally  as  the 
notions  of  time  and  space.  It  comes  by  intuition 
...  in  the  same  way  as  comes  the  belief  in  God, 
the  love  of  man,  the  sentiment  of  justice. ' 

The  idea  of  immortality,  in  other  words,  is  as 
instinctive  as  religion.  Nay,  it  is  a  part  of  rcHgion 
and  thus  as  real,  or  unreal,  as  God  and  the  soul! 

The  significance  of  this  universal  presence  of  the 
idea  of  immortality  within  the  human  mind,  as  an 
intimation  of  a  reality  corresponding  to  the  idea, 
has  ever  been  apparent  to  the  prophetic  mind. 
Theodore  Parker  defined  this  significance  with 
splendid  power,  in  his  great  Sermon  on  Immortal 
Life,  when  he  said, 

'  See  A  Sermon  on  Immortal  Life,  Centenary  Edition,  vol.  iii. 
pages  321-22.  * 

5 


66 


Is  Death  the  End? 


What  is  thus  in  man  is  writ  there  of  God,  who  writes 
no  lies.  To  suppose  that  this  universal  desire  has  no 
corresponding  gratification,  is  to  represent  God  not  as 
the  Father  of  all,  but  as  only  a  deceiver.  I  feel  the 
longing  after  immortality  a  desire  essential  to  my 
nature,  deep  as  the  foundation  of  my  being.  ...  I 
feel  conscious  of  immortality;  that  I  am  not  to  die — 
no,  never  to  die,  though  often  to  change.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  this  desire  and  consciousness  are  felt  only 
to  mislead,  to  beguile,  to  deceive  me.  .  .  .  For  my 
own  part,  I  can  conceive  of  nothing  which  shall  make 
me  more  certain  of  immortality.  I  ask  no  argument 
from  learned  lips.  No  miracle  could  make  me  more 
sure — no,  not  if  the  sheeted  dead  burst  cerement  and 
shroud,  and  rising  forth  from  their  honoured  tombs 
stood  here  before  me  .  .  .  no,  not  if  the  souls  of  all 
my  sires  since  time  began  came  thronging  round,  and 
with  miraculous  speech  told  me  they  lived  and  I 
should  also  live.  I  could  only  say,  "I  knew  all  this 
before,  why  waste  your  heavenly  speech.  "^ 

The  real  significance  of  this  great  fact,  however, 
could  not  be  made  apparent  until  the  science  of 
evolution  had  laid  bare  the  secret  of  man*s  being, 
and  revealed  the  intimations  of  his  soul  as  their 
own  best  verification.  When  Herbert  Spencer 
gave  to  the  world  his  epoch-making  exposition  of 
life  as  ''the  continuous  adjustment  of  inner  rela- 
tions to  outer  relations,"'  he  established  at  one 
stroke  what  his  disciple  and  interpreter,  Dr.  John 
Fiske,    later   called    ''the   everlasting   reality   of 

^  See  Centenary  Edition,  vol.  iii.,  page  322. 
*  See  Principles  of  Biology,  vol.  i.,  page  99. 


Intimations  of  Immortality         67 

religion**— and  by  the  same  token  also,  of  course, 
the  everlasting  reality  of  religion's  great  postulate 
of  the  undying  soul.  What  is  meant  by  this 
assertion,  and  what  bearing  it  has  upon  the  idea  of 
immortality  can  be  made  plain  in  a  very  few  words! 

By  the  definition  of  life  as  "the  continuous 
adjustment  of  inner  relations  to  outer  relations,  '* 
Spencer  meant  simply  that  in  the  outer  world  of 
reality  there  is  a  vast  complexity  of  phenomena, 
and  that  an  organism — vegetable,  animal,  or 
human — is  alive  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  able  to  adjust 
itself  to  these  phenomena.  If  life  is  extinct,  there 
is  no  adjustment,  as  when  a  tree  fails  to  put  forth 
leaves  when  touched  by  the  warm  breezes  of  the 
early  spring.  If  life  is  of  a  low  order,  the  adjust- 
ments are  few  in  number  and  more  or  less  clumsy 
in  operation,  as  in  the  case  of  the  polyp  which  can 
do  little  more  than  extend  or  contract  its  tentacles 
in  response  to  outward  vibrations  and  contacts. 
If  life  is  of  a  high  order,  the  adjustments  are  many 
and  accurate,  as  in  the  case  of  "the  keen-scented 
bloodhound  and  the  far-sighted  vulture,"  to  say 
nothing  of  the  primates  and  man  himself. 

Development  from  the  lower  plants  to  the  higher 
mammals  represents  a  stupendous  progression  of 
life,  all  achieved  through  the  preservation  and 
propagation  of  those  creatures  which  have  been 
most  successful  in  adjusting  themselves  to  the 
outer  relations  of  the  environment,  and  every  step 
marked  by  the  attainment  of  some  physical  or 
mental  faculty  which   has   enabled   the   animal 


68 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Intimations  of  Immortality         69 


possessing  it  to  adjust  itself  more  swiftly  and  surely 
to  its  own  environment  and  also  to  reach  out  to  a 
wider  and  more  complex  environment  beyond. 
When  life  began  upon  this  planet,  it  was  nothing 
but  a  germ  or  cell,  possessed  of  but  one  sensibility, 
that  of  touch,  and  marked  by  but  one  faculty, 
that  of  extension  and  contraction.  From  this 
feeble  beginning,  life  slowly  evolved  through 
countless  stages  of  development,  differentiating 
its  sensibilities  and  adding  to  the  number  of  its 
faculties,  until  at  last  it  unfolded  into  the  variety 
of  highly  organized  creatures  which  we  now  see 
upon  the  earth.  All  by  the  ''almost infinitely 
slow  increments  of  adjustment  upon  adjustment,  '* 
as  John  Fiske  puts  it!'  And  every  stage  of  this 
development,  be  it  noted,  has  been  called  into 
being,  and  preserved  as  an  element  of  progress, 
in  direct  response  to  the  influence  of  actual  ex- 
istences in  the  outer  world.  Thus,  for  example, 
life  was  originally  blind — there  was  no  such  thing 
as  sight ;  but  in  course  of  time  the  nerves  of  vision 
were  differentiated  from  the  nerves  of  touch,  in 
response  to  the  outward  existence  of  radiant  light, 
and  we  have  the  eye!  In  the  same  way,  the 
living  organism  was  originally  deaf — there  was 
no  such  thing  as  hearing;  but  in  course  of  time 
again,  in  response  to  the  outward  existence  of 
acoustic  vibrations,  nerves  were  developed  which 
were  sensitive  to  sound  as  distinct  from  touch, 
and  we  have  the  ear !    And  so  faculty  after  faculty 

*  See  Through  Nature  to  God,  page  182. 


i 
1 


has  been  developed,  like  the  eye  and  the  ear,  each 
in  response  to  some  stimulus  in  the  outer  world, 
and  each  maintained  by  the  relations  which  it 
continually  enjoys  with  that  stimulus.  Every 
attribute  that  we  possess,  in  other  words,  has  been 
brought  into  being  by  some  existing  outward  fact, 
and  by  that  token  is  a  living  demonstration  of 
the  abiding  reality  of  the  fact.  The  eye  proves  the 
reaHty  of  light,  the  ear  the  reaHty  of  sound,  the 
whole  complex  organic  mechanism  the  reaHty  of 
the  complex  material  world,  of  which  it  is  at  once 
the  reflection  and  the  witness!     To  sum  up  the 

matter  in  a  very  crude  and  yet  vivid  parable 

the  living  organism  is  related  to  the  universe  as  a 
coin  is  related  to  a  die.     The  unmarked  gold  is 
placed  in  the  stamping-machine  and  slowly  the  die 
sinks  into  its  texture  until  every  mark  upon  the 
die  has  been  transferred  to  the  surface  of  the  gold. 
The  mere  appearance  of  a  line  or  a  figure  on  the 
surface  of  the  finished  coin  is  all  the  proof  that 
is  needed  of  the  original  presence  of  that  line  or 
figure  on  the  die.     In  the  same  way,  the  living 
organism  is  placed  in  what  we  may  call  the  stamp- 
ing-machine of  the  universe.     Slowly,  through  the 
long  ages  of  the  past,  the  die  of  outward  reality 
has  been  pressed  down  upon  the  yielding  texture 
of  the  organism,  until  every  fact  in  the  environing 
universe  has  made  its  indelible  impression  in  the 
shape  of  organ,  faculty,  and  idea.     And  as  with 
the  coin,  so  with  the  organism,  the  presence  of  each 
inner  attribute  and  power  proves  the  actual  exist- 


S 


70 


Is  Death  the  End? 


ence  in  the  outer  world  of  the  reality  by  which  it 
has  been  created  and  to  which  it  corresponds ! 

Now  the  significance  of  all  this  becomes  appar- 
ent, from  the  point  of  view  of  the  idea  of  immortal- 
ity,   when    we    remember    that    there    came    a 
wonderful  moment,  in  the  onward  march  of  the 
evolutionary  process,  when  man  began  to  develop 
faculties  which  showed  him  upon  the  instant  to 
be  something  more  than  the  brutes  from  whose 
loins  he  had  sprung.     It  was  at  this  time  that  the 
family  came  into  existence,  that  social  ties  began 
to  be  knit,  that  art  began  to  mould  its  first  vessels 
and  fashion  its  earliest  weapons,  that  crude  words 
began  to  be  spoken  and  rough  markings  to  be 
scratched  upon  stones,  that  nascent  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong  began  to  germinate  within  the  mind, 
and  strange  and  terrible  ideas  of  gods  and  demons 
to  reveal  a  realm  which  eye  had  not  seen  nor  ear 
heard!     At    this   moment    the   human    soul   was 
being  bom,   in  response  to  influences  from  the 
outer  world  as  real  as  the  light  waves  which  called 
into  being  the  eye  as  an  organ  of  vision,  or  the 
acoustic  vibrations  which  called  into  being  the 
ear  as  an  organ  of  hearing.     Every  moral  and 
spiritual  power  which  now  began  slowly  to  make 
its  appearance,  was  only  man's  answer  to  the  dis- 
covery of  a  new  and  higher  environment,  and  a 
condition   of  successful  adjustment   to  that  en- 
vironment.    In  all  the  mental  stirrings,  spiritual 
strivings,  and  social  struggles  of  this  momentous 
period  of  development,  we  see  only  the  instinctive 


Intimations  of  Immortality         ^\ 

attempt  of  man  to  adjust  his  inner  relations  to  the 
outer  relations  of  an  Unseen  World  which  he  can- 
not understand,  but  which  he  feels  to  be  as  real  a 
thing  as  the  fleeting  phenomena  of  time  and  space. 
And  all  the  long  history  of  humanity,  from  that 
dim  and  distant  epoch  down  to  our  own  day,  is 
only  the  painful  and  yet  glorious  story  of  man's 
endeavour  to  perfect  this  adjustment  and  verify 
this  experience.     Religion,  as  the  attempt  of  man 
to  get  into  right  relations  with  his  spiritual  as 
contrasted  with  his  material  environment,  ^'is  the 
largest  and  most  ubiquitous  fact  connected  with 
the    existence    of    mankind    upon    the    earth.  "^ 
What  man's  development  would  have  been  without 
it  is  quite  beyond  imagination ! 

Now  what  this  all  means  as  an  intimation  of  the 
reality  of  the  Unseen  World  must  be  evident  at 
this  point  without  further  argument.     If  anything 
is  clear,  it  is  that  man's  consciousness  of  God,  the 
soul,  immortal  life,  his  persistent  endeavour  to 
verify  this  consciousness  and  answer  the  problems 
which  it  has  raised,   and  his  development  and 
utilization  of  spiritual  faculties  as  means  of  adjust- 
ment   to   the   invisible    realm    revealed    by    this 
consciousness,  are  themselves  the  only  verification 
that  we  need  of  "the  everlasting  reality  of  religion." 
As  the  eye  proves  the  existence  of  light  and  the 
ear  the  existence  of  sound,  so  may  we  not  say 
that    "the   human   soul   vaguely   reaching   forth 
toward  ...  an  eternal  worid  not  visible  to  the 

'  See  Through  Nature  to  God,  page  189. 


72 


Is  Death  the  End? 


sense,"'  gives  us  something  very  akin  to  a  proof 
of  the  existence  of  this  world?  John  Fiske,  in  his 
famous  essay  upon  this  subject,  has  stated  the 
matter  with  a  degree  of  finality  which  makes  full 
quotation  inevitable. 

If  the  relation  thus  established  [he  says],  is  a  relation 
of  which  only  the  subjective  term  is  real  and  the 
objective  term  is  non-existent,  then,  I  say,  it  is  some- 
thing uttCxly  without  precedent  in  the  whole  history 
of  creation.  All  the  analogies  of  evolution,  so  far  as 
we  have  yet  been  able  to  decipher  it,  are  overwhelm- 
ingly against  any  such  supposition.  To  suppose  that 
during  countless  ages  .  .  .  the  progress  of  life  was 
achieved  through  adjustments  to  external  realities, 
but  that  then  the  method  was  all  at  once  changed  and 
throughout  a  vast  province  of  evolution  the  end  was 
secured  through  adjustments  to  external  non-realities, 
is  to  do  sheer  violence  to  logic  and  common  sense .... 
So  far  as  our  knowledge  of  Nature  goes  the  whole 
momentum  of  it  carries  us  onward  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  Unseen  World,  as  the  objective  term  in  a 
relation  of  fundamental  importance  that  has  co- 
existed with  the  whole  career  of  mankind,  has  a  real 
existence.  .  .  .  The  lesson  of  evolution  is  that 
through  all  these  weary  ages  the  human  soul  has  not 
been  cherishing  in  religion  a  delusive  phantom,  but  in 
spite  of  seemingly  endless  groping  and  stumbling  it 
has  been  rising  to  the  recognition  of  its  essential 
kinship  with  the  ever-living  God.^ 

Thus  does  the  thought  of  immortality,  when 
regarded  not  as  a  belief  to  be  accepted  but  as  an 

«  See  Through  Nature  to  God,  page  i88.      '  Ibid.,  pages  189-90. 


Intimations  of  Immortality         73 

idea  to  be  explained,  present  to  us  the  argument 
for  its  own  verification.     The  fact  that  man,  from 
the  very  earliest  period  of  his  existence,  has  had 
this  extraordinary  idea  of  an  eternal  life,  of  which 
the  Hfe  that  now  is  gives  no  least  suggestion— the 
fact  that  all  men  have  had  this  idea,  have  never 
been  able  to  get  away  from  it,  have  never  succeeded 
in  kilHng  it  by  their  disbelief  or  weakening  it  by 
their  doubt,  have  always  tried  to  solve  its  problems 
and  overcome  its  difficulties,  and  especially  have 
found  in  it  the  answer  to  their  noblest  hopes, 
highest  aspirations,  and  deepest  affections— all  this 
would  seem  to  be  the  sure  adaptation  of  the 
struggling  spirit   to   the  reaHty  of  the   Unseen. 
More  significant  than  any  belief  in  immortality 
IS  man's  unending  search  for  grounds  for  such 
behef .     More  impressive  than  the  occasional  vision 
of  seer  or  saint,  is  the  constant  presence  of  the 
mere  idea  in  every  humblest  life.     In  his  great 
essay  upon  Immortality,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 
tells  of  two  men,  just  now  identified  in  the  last 
volume  of  his  Journals  as  Albert   H.  Tracy  and 
Lewis  Cass, '  who  early  in  life  spent  much  of  their 
time  together  in  earnest  search  for  some  proof  of 
immortahty.     An  accident  separated  them,  and  it 
was  not  till  some  twenty-five  years  later  that  they 
chanced  to  meet.     They  said  nothing,  '^but  shook 
hands  long  and  cordially.     At  last  his  friend  said, 
^Any    light,   Albert?'       ^None,'   replied    Albert! 
^Any  light,  Lewis?'    'None,' he  replied."    And  so 

'  See  Journals,  volume  x.,  page  120. 


74 


Is  Death  the  End? 


»»i 


they  parted,  their  long  search  still  unended.  And 
Emerson  says  of  this  impressive  incident,  ''that 
the  impulse  which  drew  those  two  minds  to  this 
inquiry  through  so  many  years  was  a  better  af- 
firmative evidence  for  immortality  than  their 
failure  to  find  a  confirmation  was  a  negative.' 


Ill 


In  all  that  we  have  just  been  saying  about  this 
idea  of  immortality,  it  must  have  been  evident 
that  man  is  obviously  a  being  who  belongs  not  so 
much  to  the  visible  realm  of  the  senses  and  things 
material  as  to  the  invisible  realm  of  thought  and 
spirit.  The  idea  of  immortality  is  wonderful  in 
itself,  as  we  have  just  seen;  but  more  wonderful 
still  is  the  fact  that  in  man  we  have  a  creature  who 
IS  capable  of  having  such  an  idea.  Never  cer- 
tainly, until  man  appeared  upon  the  scene,  was 
there  a  mind  big  enough  to  recognize  it,  or  a  soul 
mighty  enough  to  receive  and  welcome  it.  Be- 
tween man  and  his  animal  progenitors,  in  other 
words,  there  is  one  fundamental  distinction,  if  no 
other — that  the  human  creature  is  possessed  of 
emotion^,  ideas,  impulses,  aspirations,  purposes, 
which  never  enter  even  momentarily  within  the 
consciousness  of  the  brute  creature  of  the  jungle 

^  See  Immortality,  in  Letters  and  Social  Aims,  page  270. 

"  I  have  never  seen  what  to  me  seemed  an  atom  of  proof  that 
there  is  a  future  Hfe.  And  yet — I  am  strongly  inchned  to  expect 
one." — Mark  Twain,  in  Mark  Twain:  A  Biography,  by  Albert 
Bigelow  Paine,  vol.  iii.,  page  143 1. 


Intimations  of  Immortality 


/o 


or  the  plain.     With  the  animal,  the  physical  life 
is  all-important,  nay  the  sole  consideration.     His 
search  for  food  and  propagation  of  his  kind,  his 
instincts  which  teach  him  with  startling  accuracy 
to  shun  injury  and  flee  from  peril,  his  brief  periods 
of  parental  watchfulness  and  affection— all  these 
are  qualities  directed  to  but  one  end,  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  physical  existence  of  the  individual  and, 
through  the  individual,  of  the  species.     With  man,' 
however,  we  find  the  physical  subordinated  to  the 
mental,    moral,    and   spiritual.     The   life   of   the 
flesh,  which  absorbs  the  energies  of  the  brute,  man 
deems  to  constitute  the  lowest  and  therefore  the 
least  important  part  of  his  nature.     Just  in  so 
far  as  he  rises  above  the  low  plain  of  his  outward 
physical  existence  and  mounts  to  the  heights  of 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual,  does  he  begin  to 
fulfil  the  true  measure  of  his  manhood.     Just  in 
so  far,  indeed,  as  he  is  willing,  if  need  be,  to  bruise 
and  break  and  cast  away  the  body  for  the  sake  of 
the  higher  interests  of  the  soul,  is  he  in  reality  a 
man  in  the  literal  sense  of  that  mighty  word. 
''Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God. " 
He  has  a  body,  with  demands  that  must  be  satis- 
fied and  rights  that  must  be  observed,  but  he  has 
also  a  heart  and  soul  with  greater  demands  and 
loftier  rights.     He  carries  with  him  the  instincts  of 
the  flesh— normal,  natural,  healthful,  every  one— 
but  above  and  beyond  these  does  he  carry  with 
him   those  ideas  and  ideals,   those  dreams  and 


76 


Is  Death  the  End? 


visions,  which  disclose  a  world  to  which  no  flesh 
is  heir.  He  eats  and  sleeps  and  reproduces  his 
kind,  like  any  wild  creature  of  the  field  or  forest, 
but  he  also  plays  with  lines  and  figures,  translates 
thoughts  into  words,  chants  hymns  of  praise, 
paints  visions  of  beauty,  loves  and  forgives,  laughs 
at  joy  and  weeps  at  sorrow,  suffers  for  a  cause,  dies 
for  a  gleam  of  human  betterment,  cherishes  a  hope 
of  Hfe  etemal !  All  this  is  as  native  to  his  existence, 
as  spawning  to  the  fish,  nesting  to  the  bird,  or 
mating  to  the  jungle  lion.  Man,  like  the  God  in 
whose  image  he  is  made,  is  spirit,  and  therefore 
lives,  loves,  and  worships  in  spirit  and  in  truth ! 

Now  just  here,  in  this  isolation  and  elevation 
of  man  as  a  spiritual  being,  do  we  have  what  may 
be  described  perhaps  as  that  one  intimation  of 
immortality  which  transcends  and  hence  includes 
all  others.  For  the  significant  thing  about  this 
distinction  between  man  and  his  poor  relation,  the 
animal,  as  James  Martineau  has  pointed  out  in  his 
Study  of  Religion,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
*'the  outfit  of  the  animal  seems  an  ideal  provision 
for  the  purely  terrestrial  sphere  in  w^hich  he  is 
placed,  while  the  outfit  of  man,  if  the  terrestrial 
sphere  be  all  that  is  appointed  for  him,  seems 
clearly  a  vast  over-provision. "  The  animal  has  all 
that  he  needs  for  his  earthly  existence;  the  man 
has  this  and  infinitely  more,  which  seems  to  have 
no  relation  to  the  necessities  of  his  present  career. 
If  this  life  be  all,  what  need  has  man  of  these 
stupendous  mental  powers,  intense  moral  convic- 


^ 


Intimations  of  Immortality         77 

tions,  lofty  spiritual  aspirations,  which  characterize 
him  as  a  being  apart  from  the  rest  of  evolving  Hfe? 
If  death  be  the  end,  how  shall  we  reconcile  this 
vast  endowment  of  spiritual  force  with  an  environ- 
ment for  which  the  physical  endowment  of  the 
animal  is  found  to  be  an  adequate  provision?     If 
the  only  problem  that  faces  a  man  is  that  of  living 
for  sixty  or  seventy  years  upon  this  earth,  ere  he 
passes  into  oblivion,  why  should  he  be  moved,  as 
by  some  power  not  himself,  to  give  his  strength 
and  days  to  laborious  historical  researches,  to  pro- 
found  metaphysical  speculations,  to  the  rapture  of 
poetry  and  the  thrill  of  music,  to  the  dreaming  of 
dreams  and  the  seeing  of  visions,  to  struggles, 
sacrifices,  and  sufferings  for  human  betterment,' 
to  the  thought  of  God  and  the  hope  of  immortaHty  ? 
What  place  have  any  of  these  things  in  this  strictly 
terrestrial  sphere  of  existence?     If  this  worid  be 
all,  then  is  not  the  swiftness  of  the  deer  or  the 
strength  of  the  lion  a  more  useful  attribute  than 
the  brain  of  a  Plato,  and  the  acute  hearing  of  the 
dog  or  the  far  vision  of  the  eagle  a  richer  endow- 
ment than  the  heart  of  a  Christ?    If  the  scope  of 
life  be  bounded  in  space  by  this  planet  and  in  time 
by  the  Psalmist's  span  of  years,  then  must  we  not 
regard  that  fateful  moment  in  the  evolutionary 
process,  pointed  out  by  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  and 
his  compeers,  when  the  further  development  of  the 
body  as  a  whole  was  sacrificed  to  the  indefinite 
development  of  the   single   organ   of  the   brain, 
as  a  fatal  moment,  and  all  development  since 


78 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Intimations  of  ImmortaHty         79 


that  time  as  marking  not  progress  but  retro- 
gression? In  the  face  of  all  the  facts,  is  there 
any  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  the  mere 
brute  is  perfectly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  this 
terrestrial  existence,  while  man  is  cumbered  by 
a  vast  accumulation  of  extraneous  attributes 
which  only  bring  him  labour  and  sorrow  all  his 

days? 

Such  a  conclusion,  however,  is  manifestly  im- 
possible! In  the  divine  economy  of  this  great 
universe,  no  such  maladjustment  of  conditions 
is  thinkable !  When  we  find  man  dowered  with 
these  marvellous  faculties  of  mind  and  spirit,  it 
means  but  one  thing— that  his  life,  unlike  that  of 
the  brute,  is  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  a  sphere 
far  transcending  that  in  which  he  is  now  Hving— 
that  he  is  the  denizen  of  a  spiritual  world,  the  heir 
of  an  eternal  life,  wherein  his  powers  of  soul  may 
find  their  true  purpose  and  fulfilment.  Man  was 
never  dowered  with  such  a  mind,  or  heart,  or  soul 
merely  to  enable  him  to  meet  the  conditions  of  such 
a  material  environment  as  this  which  now  we  see. 
He  was  thus  equipped,  we  may  be  sure,  because  of 
his  destiny  to  greater  and  higher  issues.  Con- 
sider the  range  of  man's  thought,  the  sweep  of  his 
love,  the  unfathomed  depths  of  his  sorrow  and  his 
joy!  Recall  the  persistence  of  his  dreams,  the  glory 
of  his  deeds,  the  subUmities  of  his  self-sacrifice! 
Remember  his  willingness  to  forget  all  creature 
comforts  for  the  sake  of  a  song  that  he  must  sing, 
to  endure  reproach  and  shame  and  bodily  suffering 


I 


for  the  sake  of  a  cause  that  he  must  serve,  to  be 
''stoned,  sawn  asunder,  slain  with  the  sword," 
for  the  sake  of  a  love  for  humankind  that 
he  must  heed!  And  who  can  doubt  his 
immortality? 

I  can  best  sum  up  what  is  involved  in  "  this  great 
argument,''  perhaps,  by  resorting  once  again  to 
parable.     I  go  down  to  one  of  the  great  docks 
which  line  the  water-front  of  New  York,  and  there 
I  find  a  Httle  vessel,  which  is  of  weak  construction, 
manned  by  a  scant  crew  of  three  or  four,  laden  with 
provisions  adequate  for  a  week  only,  equipped  with 
means  for  meeting  the  hazards  of  only  the  lightest 
seas.     I  know  at  once,  from  the  whole  character 
and  outfit  of  this  ship,  that  she  is  a  coaster,  bound 
for  no  more  distant  port  than  Baltimore  or  Port- 
land.    Close  by,   I  see  another  vessel  of  quite 
a  different  character.     She  is  superb  in  every  rope 
and  timber,  built  with  a  strength  calculated  to 
withstand  the  mightiest  gales  that  blow,  manned 
by  a  large  and  disciplined  crew,  and  stocked  with 
provisions  which  might  last  a  year  or  more.     And 
here  again  I  know  at  once,  from  the  mere  appear- 
ance and  equipment  of  the  ship,  that  she  is  a 
merchantman,  bound  for  the  most  distant  ports  of 
Africa  and  Asia. 

So  also  with  man !  Is  it  not  true  of  him,  as  of 
the  merchantman,  that  the  equipment  points  with 
perfect  accuracy  to  the  character  and  direction  of 
the  voyage?' 

'  See  James  xMartineau's  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.,  pages  347-59. 


8o 


Is  Death  the  End? 


IV 


Just  here,  in  this  consideration  of  man*s  essential 
nature  as  a  spiritual  and  not  a  material  being,  do 
we  have  an  intimation  of  immortality  so  funda- 
mental as  to  present  a  variety  of  aspects,  each  one 
of  which  is  important  enough  to  call  for  independ- 
ent treatment  as  an  argument  for  the  eternal  hope. 

In  the  ilrst  place,  there  is  what  we  may  call  the 
scientific  argument,  which  is  founded  upon  the 
modem  conception  of  persistence  or  conservation. 

This  idea  received  its  first  expression  in  the  now 
familiar  doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter. 
In  the  old  days,  the  notion  was  universally  current 
that  matter  was  a  kind  of  "variable  quantity,'* 
which  was  able  to  appear  out  of  nothing  as  readily 
as  it  was  able  to  disappear  into  nothing.  The 
Christian  dogma  of  the  creation  of  the  world  in  the 
beginning  and  an  ending  of  the  world  on  some 
fateful  ''last  day,"  was  based  upon  this  idea,  and 
persists  in  our  time  only  as  this  idea  itself  persists. 
Outside  of  the  narrowing  circle  of  persons  who  are 
utterly  ignorant  and  superstitious,  however,  this 
conception  of  the  nature  of  matter  has  in  our  time 
vanished.  Today,  as  Herbert  Spencer  has  told 
us,  ''the  doctrine  that  matter  is  indestructible 
has  become  a  commonplace.  All  the  apparent 
proofs  that  something  can  come  out  of  nothing, 
a  wider  knowledge  has  one  by  one  cancelled."^ 
The  star  that  suddenly  disappears  in  the  night 

^  See  First  Principles ,  page  177. 


Intimations  of  Immortality         81 

sky,  has  only  moved  out  of  our  range  of  vision 
just  as  the  comet  that  unexpectedly  flames  from' 
out  the  darkness  is  not  newly  created,  but  has 
come  for  the  first  time  within  our  ken.     Tyndall's 
"streak  of  morning  cloud  "  that  "melts  into  infinite 
azure'   even  as  we  look  upon  its  fleecy  loveliness 
has  only  been  dissipated  into  a  more  diffused' 
transparent  form  of  substance.     Matter,  in  other 
words,  cannot  be  destroyed.     It  is  a  continuous 
phenomenon.    As   it   vanishes   in   one   form    it 
appears   in   another,    and   is   thus   conserved   in 
unvarymg  amount  from  aeon  to  aeon ! 

A  further  extension  of  this  law  is  seen  in  the  great 
fact  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  or,  as  Herbert 
Spencer  preferred  to  call  it,  "the  persistence  of 
force.    ■    First  discovered  in  1842  by  the  famous 
bwabian    physician,    Dr.    Robert    Mayer— redis- 
covered five  years  later  by  the  eminent  physicist, 
Herman  Helmholtz,  who  for  the  first  time  devel- 
oped and  applied  it-taken  over  by  John  Tyndall 
as  the  fundamental  law  of  nature,  and  received  by 
Spencer  as  the  basic  principle  of  his  Synthetic 
Philosophy-this  law  has  been  well  described  by 
John  Fiske  as  "the  deepest  truth  which  analytic 
science  can  disclose. "    Its  significance  can  best  be 
understood,  perhaps,  by  noting  in  due  order  the 
three  stages  of  its  discovery  and  application. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  discovered,  or  rather 
suspected  in  a  vague  sort  of  way,  that  the  various 
kmds  of  energy  in  the  world  are  not  in  reality  so 

'  ^«>^/  Principles,  page  194. 


82 


Is  Death  the  End? 


many  different  and  isolated  forces,  as  had  been 
generally  assumed  without  question,  but  only 
different  manifestations  of  one  fundamental  force, 
which  is  best  described  simply  as  motion.  Heat 
is  not  one  separate  phenomenon,  light  another, 
and  magnetism  still  another;  but  heat,  light, 
magnetism,  and  the  rest,  are  all  so  many  variants 
of  one  great  power  or  energy,  which  is  common  to 
them  all.  "We  now  know,"  says  Ernst  Haeckel, 
affirming  at  this  late  date  what  was  originally 
only  suspected,  "that  heat,  sound,  light,  chemical 
action,  electricity,  and  magnetism,  are  all  modes 
of  motion."' 

This  postulate  was  definitely  established  when, 
as  a  second  stage  in  the  revelation  of  this  great 
law,  it  was  discovered  that  one  force  can  be 
changed  or  converted  into  another.  Motion, 
when  arrested,  produces  heat,  electricity,  magnet- 
ism, light,  according  to  circumstances.  Heat  is 
continuously  passing  over  into  light  and  power. 
Magnetism's  transformation  into  motion  is  the 
best  evidence  we  have  of  its  existence.  More 
evident  still  are  the  metamorphoses  of  electricity. 
Into  my  room  there  runs  the  one  slender  wire  from 
the  electric  power-house  some  miles  away,  and 
from  this  single  source  of  energy  I  get  the  light 
by  which  I  read  by  night,  the  heat  by  which  I 
cook  my  morning  meal,  and  the  power  by  which 
I  drive  my  vacuum  cleaner.  Each  force,  in  other 
words,  as  might  be  shown  by  innumerable  illus- 

'  See  The  Riddle  oj  the  Universe,  page  231. 


Intimations  of  ImmortaHty         83 

trations,    is   transferable,    directly   or   indirectly 
into  every  other  force.     To  alter  just  a  bit  the 
familiar  lines  of  Shakespeare- 
All  the  world's  a  stage 
Each  force  in  its  time  plays  many  parts. 

_    Most  important  of  all,  however,  is  the  last  step 
m  the  demonstration  of  this  law  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy— namely,  that  in  the  transformation 
of  one  force  into  another,  no  particle  of  energy  is 
lost  in  the  process.   "Accurate  measurement  of  the 
quantity  of  force  which  is  used  in  this  metamor- 
phosis," says  Professor  Haeckel,  "shows  that  it  is 
constant  or  unchanged.'"    Of  course,  when  the 
transformation  is  artificial,  as  in  some  mechanical 
operation,  and  is  done  clumsily,  or  when  the  ele- 
ments handled  are  such  as  to  defy  the  rude  instru- 
ments with  which  we  have  to  work,  a  large  amount 
of  force  very  apparently  disappears.     But  while 
we,  as  individual  investigators  or  workers,  may 
lose  some  of  this  energy,  the  universe  does  not. 
No  particle  of  living  energy  is  ever  extinguished  "  ^ 
Force,  in  other  words,  to  quote  the  phrase  of 
bpencer,  persists.    All  energy  is  conserved.    So 
true  IS  this,  that,  as  Haeckel  puts  it  again,  "The 
sum  of  force  which  is  at  work  in  infinite  space  and 
produces  all  phenomena  is  unchangeable.  "^     If 
we  could  gather  together  all  the  energy  in  the  world 
and  measure  it  from  time  to  time,  we  should  find 

■  See  The  Riddle  0}  the  Universe,  page  213 

'/*<  page  213.  ^ /Jid.,  page  212. 


.3 


84 


Is  Death  the  End? 


it  always  absolutely  the  same.  No  matter  what 
changes  take  place  about  us,  the  sum-total  of  force 
in  the  universe  remains  constant.  Rivers  may 
overflow  their  banks  and  seas  run  dry,  storms  may 
sweep  the  mountains  and  level  the  harvests  of  the 
plain,  islands  may  be  shattered  by  volcanic  erup- 
tion and  continents  shaken  by  convulsive  cata- 
clysms, stars  may  waste  to  destruction  and  planets 
reel  to  pits  of  darkness,  the  earth  may  be  removed 
and  mountains  be  carried  into  the  midst  of  the  sea 
—still,  in  spite  of  all,  does  the  cosmic  energy  suffer 
no  curtailment.  It  is  the  same  yesterday,  today, 
and  forever.  In  this,  as  in  God,  there  '4s  no 
variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning." 

Here,  now,  so  far  as  matter  and  energy  are 
concerned  at  least,  is  a  basal  law  of  existence. 
*' Whatever  is,  both  was  and  shall  be/'  to  quote 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge;'  whatever  does  not  satisfy  this 
condition  must  be  regarded  as  some  transient 
appearance  merely,  and  not  as  a  fundamental  en- 
tity of  the  universe.  As  Professor  Tait  was  always 
fond  of  putting  it,  ''Persistence  or  conservation 
is  the  test  or  criterion  of  real  existence. "  ^ 

But  if  this  fact  is  true,  then  it  follows  necessarily 
that  its  converse  must  also  be  true— namely,  that 
''real  existence"  must  be  always  characterized 
by  "persistence.'*  Which  opens  up  at  once  the 
marvellous  probabiHty,  if  not  reasonable  certainty, 
that  life  or  spirit,  which  we  have  already  seen  may 

»  See  Life  and  Matter,  page  89. 
•Quoted  in  Ibid.,  page  89. 


Intimations  of  Immortality         85 

be  regarded  as  distinct  an  entity  of  the  universe 
as  either  matter  or  energy,  is  likewise  as  persistent. 
There  may  be  still  a  question  as  to  whether  life  is  a 
real  existence  by  itself,  or  only  one  more  form  of 
energy.     But  if  we  accept  the  working  hypothesis 
adopted  by  such  thinkers  as  John  Fiske,  WilHam 
James,  William  H.  Thom_son, '  and  expounded  by 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  his  Life  and  Matter,  that  "life 
is  not  a  form  of  energy   ...   but  belongs  to  a 
separate  order  of  existence,  which  interacts  with 
this  material  frame  of  things,  and,  while  there, 
exerts  guidance  and  control  on  the  energy  which 
already  here  exists,"^  there  can  be  no  question 
whatsoever  as  to  its  persistence,  or  to  use  the 
theological  term,  immortality.    To  think  of  life,  or 
spirit,  as  appearing  and  disappearing,  coming  into 
and  going  out  of  existence,  is  surely  as  irrational  a 
thing  today  as  to  think  of  matter  or  energy  acting 
in  this  same  extraordinary  fashion.     We  would 
ridicule  for  his  ignorance  or  credulity  a  man  who 
would  believe  in  our  day  that  the  greater  part  of  a 

'  See  above  Chapter  I.,  pages  36-49. 
^^  ^See  further  Lodge's  interesting  and  persuasive  analogy: 
"I  see  life  animating  matter  for  a  time  and  then  quitting  it,  just 
as  I  see  dew  appearing  and  disappearing  on  a  plate.  Apart 
from  a  solid  surface,  dew  cannot  exist  as  such,  and  to  a  savage  it 
might  seem  to  spring  into  and  go  out  of  existence;  but  we  happen 
to  know  more  about  it:  we  know  that  it  has  a  permanent  and 
continuous  existence  in  an  imperceptible,  intangible,  suppressional 
form,  though  its  visible  manifestation  in  the  form  of  mist  or  dew 
IS  temporary  and  evanescent.  Perhaps  it  is  permissible  to  trace 
in  that  elementary  phenomenon  some  superficial  analogy  to  an 
incarnation.  "—Lz/e  and  Matter,  pages  104-5. 


ji 


86 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Intimations  of  Immortality         87 


log  of  wood  has  been  annihilated  by  the  action  of 
the  fire  which  consumes  it,  or  that  the  heat  of  a 
molten  metal,  which  disappears  under  the  cooling 
action  of  air  or  water,  has  been  eliminated  from 
the  universe.  And  why  should  we  not  similarly 
ridicule  a  man  who  would  believe  that  that  great 
spiritual  force,  which  we  call  the  soul,  has  come  to 
its  end  with  the  death  or  dissolution  of  its  physical 
vehicle,  the  body?  Such  a  break  in  the  line  of 
continuity  is  unthinkable.  What  prevails  through- 
out the  great  realm  of  matter  and  energy  cannot 
surely  fail  in  the  greatest  of  all  realms,  the  realm 
of  spirit.  The  law  of  conservation,  in  other  words, 
must  hold  here  as  well  as  everywhere  else.  The 
universe  is  still  a  unit,  and  its  laws  of  universal 
application. 

But  this  truth  is  not  only  established  by  the 
primary  processes  of  scientific  reasoning,  but  is 
impressively  confirmed  by  the  ordinary  standards 
of  common  sense.  Entirely  apart  from  all  matters 
of  rational  hypothesis  and  inference,  is  there  any 
sane  man  who  can  believe  that  the  complete 
cessation  of  a  certain  amount  of  energy  in  the 
material  world  is  impossible,  but  that  a  similar 
cessation  of  a  certain  amount  of  energy  in  the 
spiritual  world  is  not  only  possible  but  inevitable 
—that  God  has  decreed  that  the  physical  force 
known  as  heat  can  never  be  annihilated,  but  that 
the  spiritual  force  known  as  love  not  only  can 
be  but  is  annihilated  with  the  coming  of  what 
we  call  death  to  this  mortal   flesh?      If  this  is 


actually  the  case,  then  may  we  not  wisely  ask 
ourselves  what  kind  of   a  world  we  are  inhabit- 
ing?    What  are  we  to  think  of  a  worid  which 
cannot  tolerate  the  destruction  of  a  single  particle 
of  light,  or  heat,  or  magnetism,  and  yet  can  cast 
away  utterly  the  greatness  and  power  of  the  human 
soul?    What  are  we  to  think  of  a  God  who  is  so 
thrifty   that   he   cannot   spare   a   single  ohm   of 
electricity  or  pound  of  steam,  and  yet  can  regard 
with  equanimity  the  incalculable  loss  of  reason, 
affection,  and  consecrated  purpose?     The  mind  of 
a  man  or  the  heart  of  a  woman  would  seem  to  be 
just  as  much  a  force  as  the  dynamo  of  an  electric 
battery  or  the  boiler  of  a  locomotive ;  and  if  the 
cosmic  law  cannot  permit  the  annihilation  of  the 
one,  it  would  surely  seem  as  though  it  could  not 
permit  the  annihilation  of  the  other.     Is  it  not 
madness  to  conceive  of  the  reason,  the  conscience, 
the  magnetism,  the  love,  of  man  coming  to  an  end 
at  death,  and  a  ray  of  light  or  a  volt  of  electricity 
going  on  forever?     Is  it  not  madness  to  think  of 
the  imperial  mind  of  Cassar  extinguished  like  a 
gutted  candle,  and  his  ashes  still  with  us  to  *'stop 
a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away  ?  "     Even  though  the 
evidence  which  science  gives  us  of  the  universal 
extension  of  the  law  of  persistence  were  utterly 
destroyed,  it  would  still  be  possible  to  affirm  the 
law,  as  regards  the  spirit  at  least,   on  the  basis 
of  the  moral  reason.     "Can  we  believe, '*  says  Dr. 
C.  F.  Dole,  in  his  The  Hope  of  Immortality,  **that 
the  noblest  and  holiest,  the  grand  men  of  genius. 


J 
( 


J 


88 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Intimations  of  ImmortaHty         89 


the  leaders  and  helpers  of  mankind,  have  perished 
like  so  many  cattle  ?  "  If  so,  he  continues, ' '  then  we 
must  translate  all  life  into  terms  of  final  death.**' 
The  impossibility  of  such  translation  in  the  vast 
realm  of  physical  energy  has  been  demonstrated. 
That  such  translation  is  equally  impossible  in  the 
realm  of  spiritual  energy  would  seem  to  be  evident. 
The  law  of  persistence  or  conservation  is  but  the 
physical  equivalent  of  religion's  abiding  truth  of 
the  immortaHty  of  the  soul. 


/ 

y 


Another  aspect  of  this  fundamental  intimation 
of  immortality  from  man's  essential  nature  as 
a  spiritual  being,  is  seen  in  what  we  may  call 
the  argument  from  ethics.  This  is  described  by 
Prof essor  WiUiam  Adams  Brown,  in  his  The  Christ- 
ian Hope,  as  "the  argument  from  the  incomplete- 
ness of  human  life.  '* 

All  about  us  [he  says],  we  see  in  human  nature  un- 
developed possibilities,  beginnings  that  have  no  end- 
ing, prophecies  that  have  no  fulfilment.  .  .  .  We 
carry  each  one  of  us  within  ourselves  a  better  self, 
a  soul  as  yet  unborn  which  is  struggling  toward  the 
light.     Is  it  never  to  come  to  its  own?^ 

This  argument  assumes  a  peculiar  cogency  when 

^  See  The  Hope  of  Immortality,  page  15. 
» See  The  Christian  Hope,  page  187. 


we  survey  the  social  conditions  which  have  pre- 
vailed in  this  and  every  other  age,  and  see  how 
hideously  and  needlessly  incomplete  are  the  lives 
of  men.     The  majority  of  mortals  are  bom  amid 
conditions  which  permit  nothing  better  than  a  mere 
brute  struggle  for  existence,  and  from  these  condi- 
tions it  is  only  the  rare  individual  who  succeeds 
in  making  escape.     Faced  day  after  day  with  the 
terrific  problem  of  getting  food  enough  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together,  of  securing  clothing  enough 
to  ward  off  death  from  sheer  exposure,  of  maintain- 
ing some  kind  of  a  shelter  which  can  be  called  a 
home,  most  men  and  women  exercise  nothing  but 
their  lowest  animal  functions,  and  from  necessity 
leave    those    higher    spiritual    attributes,    which 
alone  distinguish  them  from  the  brutes,  to  atrophy 
and  perish  from  disuse.     Think  of  the  millions 
who  labour  in  our  mines  and  mills,  and  Hve  in  our 
slums  and  factory  villages;  think  of  the  wasting 
hordes  of  China  and  India,  the  slaves  of  Africa  and 
the  peons  of  Mexico,  the  peasants  of  Europe  and 
the   factory  hands   of   England   and   America— 
and  see  how  true  is  this  assertion  about  the  '*  un- 
developed possibilities"  of  human  nature.     Most 
men  never  Hve  at  all  as  men!    They  simply  exist 
and,   when  their  time  comes,   die— with  all  the 
divine  powers  of  their  natures  unfulfilled.     The 
thought  which  came  to  Gray  as  he  walked  among 
the    graves    in    the    country    churchyard    must 
come  to  us  all,  as  we  ponder  the  unnumbered 
dead: 


90 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Perhaps  in  this  neglected  spot  is  laid, 

Some  heart  once  pregnant  with  celestial  fire, 

Hands  that  the  rod  of  empire  might  have  swayed, 
Or  waked  to  ecstasy  the  living  lyre. 

Some  village  Hampden  that,  with  dauntless  breast, 
The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood. 

Some  mute  inglorious  Milton  here  may  rest. 
Some  Cromwell  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood. 

But  knowledge  to  their  eyes  her  ample  page 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  time  did  ne'er  unroll; 

Chill  penury  repressed  their  noble  rage, 
And  froze  the  genial  currents  of  the  soul. 

What  wonder  that,  as  man  has  looked  upon  the 
waste  and  wreckage  of  human  life,  seen  the  havoc 
wrought  by  ignorance  and  poverty,  counted  the 
souls  that  have  perished  barren  of  spiritual  blossom 
and  fruit,  he  has  cried  out,  with  Professor  Brown, 
is  humanity  ''never  to  come  to  its  own?  .  .  . 
Is  this  really  to  be  the  end  of  all? "—and  has  found 
in   the  hope  of  immortality   an    answer    to   his 

cry! 

From  one  point  of  view,  of  course,  this  argument 
is  weakened  by  the  consideration  that  the  remedy 
for  such  an  ill  as  this  which  w^e  have  just  described 
is  to  be  found  not  in  some  fulfilment  that  may 
be  had  in  the  life  to  come,  but  in  the  fulfilment 
that  should  be  had  in  the  life  that  now^  is.  What 
we  have  here,  perhaps,  is  an  intimation  not  so 
much  of  immortality  as  of  the  cruelty  and  stupidity 
which  in  all  ages  have  doomed  the  many  to  misery 


Intimations  of  ImmortaHty         91 

for  the  sake  of  the  favoured  and  prospered  few. 
This  is  an  argument  not  for  patient  waiting  for  the 
better  life  to  come,  but  for  such  a  reconstruction  of 
our  own  social  order  that  every  child  born  into  the 
world  shall  be  given  an  equal  chance  with  every 
other  child  to  develop  his  latent  possibilities  and 
powders.     It  is  a  challenge  not  to  trust  in  God  for 
the  ultimate  rectifying  of  human  mistakes  and 
crimes,  but  to  rise  ourselves  and  smite  the  wrongs 
that  are  now  turning  the  great  masses  of  mankind 
to  destruction.     To  find  consolation  for  social  ini- 
quities in  the  assurance  of  immortality  is  to  run 
the  risk,  pointed  out  by  Charles  W.  Eliot,  in  his 
Religion  of  the  Future,  of  "inducing  men  to  be 
patient  under  sufferings  or  deprivations  against 
which  they  should   .    .    .   incessantly  struggle."' 
Human  life  must  of  course  be  saved  from  incom- 
pleteness, but  the  work  of  salvation  must  begin 
here  and  not  there,  today  and  not  tomorrow,  and 
must  first  of  all  be  attempted  by  ourselves  and  not 
by  God.     ''The  advent  of  a  just  freedom  for  the 
masses  of  mankind,"  says  Ex-president  Eliot  again, 
"has  been  delayed  for  centuries  by  just  this  effect 
of  compensatory  promises  issued  by  churches." 
Now  is  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord!     This 
is  holy  ground!     We  are  our  brother's  keeper! 
Break  the  fetters  which  bind,  level  the  barriers 
which  confine,  destroy  the  poverty  which  destroys 
— and  lo!  we  shall  this  hour  see  "all  about  us  in 
human  nature"  developed  and  not  undeveloped 

^  See  American  Unitarian  Association  edition,  page  ii. 


I 


92 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Intimations  of  Immortality         93 


possibilities,  beginnings  that  have  some  end,  and 
prophecies  that  reveal  some  fulfilment! 

All  this  is  true!  And  yet,  however  bright  the 
promise  of  the  future,  it  is  also  true  that  nothing 
can  ultimately  redeem  this  fact  of  life's  incomplete- 
ness from  utter  horror  but  the  assurance  of  a  life 
to  come.  And  just  here  is  the  intimation  of  im- 
mortality which  is  involved  in  this  whole  pro- 
blem. Can  anything  be  more  terrible  than  the 
thought  that  they  who  starve  and  crush  the  bodies 
of  men  can  also  starve  and  crush  their  souls? 
Can  anything  be  more  intolerable  than  the  idea 
that  the  helpless  millions  who  have  festered  and 
died  in  the  bonds  of  slavery,  the  haunts  of  poverty, 
and  the  bloody  wastes  of  barbarism,  have  lost 
their  one  and  only  chance  to  fulfil  the  mental 
and  spiritual  capacities  of  their  divine  inheritance? 
Can  anything  be  more  irrational  than  the  assertion 
that  the  human  injustice  which  "loosened  and  let 
down  the  brutal  jaw"  of  Markham's  Alan  with  the 
Hoe,  "slanted  back  (his)  brow, "  and  "blew  out  the 
light  within  (his)  brain,'*  extinguished  also  that 
flicker  of  the  soul,  however  faint  and  feeble,  which 
made  this  creature  a  "man"  after  all,  and  not 
merely  a  "brother  to  the  ox. "  Look  back  over  all 
the  long  record  of  human  misery ! — see  the  dreams 
that  have  dawned  only  to  go  out  in  blackest  night, 
the  hopes  that  have  grown  up  only  to  be  cut  down 
and  wither,  the  ideals  that  have  been  bom  only 
to  perish  miserably,  the  lives  that  have  been 
created  and  nourished  only  to  be  blasted  in  agony ! 


i 
I 


4 


— consider  all  this,  and  then  ask  if  it  can  be  possible 
that  there  is  no  future  life,  no  other  chance,  no 
ultimate  resurrection  from  man's  perpetual  cruci- 
fixion !  Such  a  condition  is  impossible !  So  sure 
as  man  was  born  at  all,  he  was  born  into  a  universe 
which  will  not  fail  him.  There  must  be  for  him 
an  opportunity  commensurate  with  his  needs! 
There  must  be  an  eternal  justice  of  the  spirit  which 
can  retrieve  the  temporary  injustice  of  the  world! 
There  must  be  a  God  who  is  more  powerful  than 
the  Neros,  the  Torquemadas,  and  the  Anciens 
Regimes.  If  not,  the  world  is  mad,  life  a  curse, 
and  the  thought  of  God  a  mockery ! 

This  ethical  argument  for  immortality  becomes 
even  more  convincing,  strangely  enough,  when  we 
turn  from  the  lives  which  are  incomplete,  to  those 
which  may  be  regarded,  from  the  spiritual  point 
of  view  at  least,  as  complete.  What  are  we  to  say, 
for  example,  when  we  see  some  soul,  which  is 
well-nigh  perfect  in  its  grasp  of  reality,  its  range 
of  sympathy,  its  love  of  all  things  good  and  beau- 
tiful, its  consecration  to  the  best  and  highest, 
suddenly  cut  off  by  some  accident  or  disease,  and 
its  work  untimely  ended?  What  are  we  to  say, 
that  is,  not  when  the  life  is  incomplete,  but  when 
the  task  to  which  the  life  has  set  itself  is  uncom- 
pleted? And  not  for  any  cause  for  which  the 
ordinary  course  of  human  events  is  responsible, 
but  for  some  cause  which  is  so  far  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  skill  and  power  that  it  seems  a  very  part 
of  the  cosmic  order !    Here  is  Captain  Scott  brought 


4 


94 


Is  Death  the  End? 


to  his  sublime  end  by  the  accident  of  bad  weather 
and  an  exhausted  supply  of  food  and  fuel!  Here 
is  Phillips  Brooks,  stricken  in  the  very  prime  of 
his  noble  career  by  a  diphtheritic  sore-throat. 
Here  is  Shelley,  drowned  in  the  unthinking  sea 
when  his  song  was  sweetest  and  strongest,  because 
of  an  unexpected  squall  of  wind !  No  one  of  these 
lives  was  incomplete.  Their  possibilities  had 
fulfilments — their  beginnings,  ends — their  pro- 
phecies, glorious  realizations!  Had  these  men 
endured  to  a  prolonged  old  age,  not  a  single  inch 
would  have  been  added  to  their  spiritual  stature. 
For 

We  live  in  deeds,  not  j'-ears;  in  thoughts,  not  breaths, 
In  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a  dial. 
We  should  count  time  by  heart-throbs.     He  most  lives 
Who  thinks  most,  feels  the  noblest,  acts  the  best. 

What  is  incomplete  is  the  work  they  might  have 
done,  the  service  they  might  have  rendered !  But 
it  is  this  incompleteness,  like  the  incompleteness  of 
the  life  itself,  which  makes  it  inconceivable  again 
that  the  souls  of  such  as  these  could  have  perished 
with  their  mortal  flesh.  Is  it  possible  that  these 
spirits  of  ours  are  dependent  for  existence  upon 
bodies  which  can  be  destroyed  almost  without  warn- 
ing by  a  fall  of  snow,  a  vagrant  grain  of  dust,  or  a 
passing  breeze  upon  the  sea  ?  Is  it  conceivable  that 
the  range  of  our  spiritual  endeavours  is  determined 
by  the  wearing  powers  of  a  stomach,  or  the  chance 
deflection  of  a  typhoid  germ?     Is  it  imaginable 


Intimations  of  Immortality         95 

that  the  murderer  who  kills  the  body  can  also 
kill  the  soul— that  the  brutal  soldiers  of  Pilate 
not  only  pierced  Jesus's  hands  and  feet,  and  broke 
his    limbs,    but    extinguished   like    a   snuffed-out 
candle  as  well  the  divine  spirit  within  his  tortured 
breast?     Do  we  set  sail  upon  life's  sea  in  so  frail 
a  craft  ?     If  so,  we  are  the  mere  playthings  of  idle 
chance !    Life  is  in  truth  a  casting  of  the  dice !     The 
cry  of  St.  Paul, ' '  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body 
of  this  death,  "  takes  on  a  new  and  awful  meaning ! 
Such  a  thought,  however,  when  really  faced,  is 
seen  to  be  impossible.     It  cannot  be  that  soul  and 
body  are  thus  locked  in  an  inseparable  embrace. 
The  completed  life  must,  somehow,  somewhere, 
go  on  with  its  uncompleted  work.     Just  to  behold 
some  noble,   ''God-conquered"  man   or  woman, 
robbed  of  the  right  to  life  and  service  by  a  broken 
limb,  a  failing  organ,  or  a  freak  of  weather,   is 
to  be  convinced  of  immortality.     Unanswerable  is 
the  query  of  Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer,  as 
he  ponders  the  sudden  passing  of  his  distinguished 
wife,    in   all   the   radiant   glory   of   her   prime- 
Though  no  regrets  are  proper  for  the  manner  of 
her  death,  who  can  contemplate  the  fact  of  it  and 
not  call  the  world  irrational  if  out  of  deference  to  a 
few  particles  of  disordered  matter  it  excludes  so  fair 
a  spirit?"' 

^ne  Life  of  Alice  Freeman   Palmer,  page   327.      See   also 

Kichard  Watson  Gilder's  poem  on  the  same  occasion: 


<i 


When  fell  today  the  word  that  she  had  gone, 
Not  this  my  thought:  Here  a  bright  journey  ends, 


96 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Nor  is  even  this  the  end!     For  no  matter  how 
perfect  the  spirit  nor  how  many  the  years,  Hfe 
never  seems  to  reach  completion  in  this  mortal 
sphere.     We  are  never  ready  to  have  the  great 
and  the  good,  however  long  their  span  of  days, 
decline  and  die.     "Who  dares  speak  the  word 
completed,"   exclaims  Prof.   Hugo  Miinsterberg, 
*'Do   not   our   purposes   grow?   .    .    .   Does   not 
every  newly  created  value  give  us  the  desire  for 
further  achievement?   ...   Is  our  life  ever  so 
completely  done  that  no  desire  has  still  a  mean- 
ing?"'    Surely  if  the  pauper  who  has  never  had 
a  chance,  and  the  hero  or  prophet  who  is  untimely 
lost,  both  point  eternity  to  man,  how  much  more 
even  the  aged  saint,  who  moves  serenely  to  his 
grave,  as  full  of  years  as  of  honours !    We  can  think 
of  the  extinction  of  Gladstone  in  his  old  age  with 
as  little  equanimity  as  that  of  the  younger  Pitt 
in  his  youth.     It  seems  as  gross  an  injustice  that 
Tennyson's  lips  of  song  should  be  permanently 
sealed  at  eighty-three,  as  Keats's  at  twenty-six. 
It  is  as  intolerable  that  the  cup  of  hemlock  should 
end   the  venerable    Socrates   as    that    the    cross 
should  end  the  youthful  Jesus.     The  old  have 
themselves  testified  to  this  feeling  in  their  own 

Here  rests  a  soul  unresting;  here,  at  last, 
Here  ends  the  earnest  struggle,  that  generous  life — 
For  all  her  life  was  giving.     Rather  this, 
I  said  (after  the  first  swift,  sorrowing  pang) 
Radiant  with  love,  and  love's  unending  power, 
Hence,  on  a  new  quest,  starts  an  eager  spirit.  .  .  ." 
»  See  The  Eternal  Life,  pages  67-69. 


Intimations  of  Immortahty         97 

cases.     Thus  James  Martineau  is  reported  to  have 
said,  on  his  eightieth  birthday,  ''How  small  a  part 
of  my  plans  have  I  been  able  to  carry  out !     Noth- 
ing is  so  plain  as  that  life  at  its  fullest  on  earth 
is  a  fragment. "     And  Victor  Hugo,  reviewing  his 
career  in  his  closing  years,  declared.  'Tor  half  a 
century  I  have  been  writing  my  thoughts  in  prose 
and  verse— history,  philosophy,  drama,  romance, 
satire,  ode,  and  song.     I  have  tried  all.     But  I  feel 
that  I  have  not  said  a  thousandth  part  of  what  is 
in  me."     The  highest  and  longest  life,  in  other 
words,  presents  the  same  imperative  for  immor- 
tality  as    the   lowest    and    shortest.     From    the 
spiritual  standpoint,  it  is  as  far  removed  from  the 
end,  and  thus  as  much  entitled  to  a    new  begin- 
ning, as  any  other.     "God's  greatness,"  even  as  it 
*' flows  around  "  and  proves  "our  incompleteness,  '* 
proves  also  our  very  eternal  continuance  toward 
a  completion.     Our  very  mortality,  in  other  words, 
is  itself  the  assurance  of  our  immortality,  as  the 
boundary  of  one  realm  is  the  border  of  the  next. 
It   was   this   argument   which   came   nearest   to 
convincing  Browning's  unbelieving  Cleon— 

.    .    .   Every  day  my  sense  of  joy 

Grows  more  acute,  my  soul  (intensified 

By  power  and  insight)  more  enlarged,  more  keen; 

While  every  day  my  hairs  fall  more  and  more, 

My  hand  shakes,  and  the  heavy  years  increase 

The  horror  quickening  still  from  year  to  year. 

The  consummation  coming  past  escape, 

When  I  shall  know  most,  and  yet  least  enjoy, — 


98 


Is  Death  the  End? 


When  all  my  works  wherein  I  prove  my  worth, 
Being  present  still  to  mock  me  in  men's  mouths, 
I,  I  the  feeUng,  thinking,  acting  man, 
The  man  who  lived  his  life  so  over-much, 
Sleep  in  my  urn.     It  is  so  horrible 
I  dare  at  times  imagine  to  my  need 
Some  future  state .... 


VI 

We  shall  not  behold,  however,  the  clearest 
intimation  of  immortality  that  is  involved  in  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man  until  we  have  turned  to  the 
consideration  of  those  larger  aspects  of  personality 
which  are  to  be  found  not  in  the  individual  himself 
but  in  that  strange  universe  of  ideas  and  ideals 
which  this  individual  has  created  for  his  abode. 

I  refer  here  to  the  familiar  fact,  which  has  been 

at  the  heart  of  every  idealistic  philosophy  from 

the  Dialogues  of  Plato  to  the  Prolegomena  of  T.  H. 

Green,  that  this  world  in  which  we  live  has  no 

permanent  value  or  even  meaning  except  as  man 

has  given  it  a  value  and  meaning  by  the  creative 

genius  of  his  spirit.     Consider  the  world  with  men 

eliminated  from  the  scene!     The  same  sun  follows 

its  pathway  through  the  skies  by  day,  and  the  same 

stars  set  their  beacons  in  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

Clouds  still  sail  through  airy  seas  of  blue,  and 

lightnings  flame  like  gleaming  swords  from  out  the 

ugly  scabbards  of  the  storm.     Mountains  still  lift 

their  heads  on  far  horizons,  rivers  still  run  through 

gloomy  jungles  and  sunny  plains  to  watery  oceans, 


Intimations  of  Immortality         99 

waves  still  sound  their  thunders  on  dripping  crags. 
Birds  sing,  leaves  rustle  in  the  breeze,  and  insects 
chant  the  monotone  of  wayward   flight.     Living 
creatures  are  everywhere  aboutus,  eating,  drinking, 
and  bringing  forth  their  kind.     Island  and  sea,' 
mountain  and  plain,  day  and  night,  sleeping  and 
waking,  birth  and  death— every  material  phenome- 
non and  every   vital  action   remain  unchanged. 
And  yet,  wdth  the  absence  of  man  is  the  absence  as 
well  of  every  meaning  that  the  world  has  ever  had ! 
The  skies  mean  as  little  to  the  eagle  as  the  sea  to 
the  dolphin.     The  lion  is  indifferent  to  the  lovely 
river  from  which  he  drinks,  and  the  lumbering 
grizzly  feels  no  stir  within  his  heart  as  he  looks 
upon  the  majestic  mountain  peak  which  is  his 
habitation.     Life  moves  on  as  it  has  ever  moved; 
but  beauty  and  ugliness,  order  and  disorder,  love 
and  hate,  right  and  wrong,  progress  and  retrogres- 
sion, beginning  and  end,  have  w^holly  disappeared. 
For  it  is  man,  and  man  alone,  who  gives  meaning 
and  value  to  the  world.     By  the  sheer  power  of  his 
genius  as  a  personality,  he  is  the  creature  of  a 
spiritual  universe,  not  of  the  raw  material  of  the 
physical  universe,  which  has,  and  can  have,  no 
existence  apart  from  him.     It  is  his  eye  which 
makes  the  landscape  beautiful,  his  ear  which  finds 
the  singing    cuckoo   "but   a   wandering  voice,'* 
his  heart  which  sees  *' sermons  in  stones,  books  in 
the  running   brooks,   and  good  in   everything." 
It  is  his  mind  which  discovers  order  in  the  day's 
succession   of  phenomena,    sees  progress  in   the 


100 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


evolution  of  earthly  life,  and  sets  goals  for  the 
future  attainment  of  humanity.     It  is  his  soul 
which  transfigures  physical  passion  into  love,  dis- 
places brute  force  with  "sweet  reasonableness,' 
and  conceives  the  coming  of  a  time  when  "the 
meek  shall  inherit  the  earth. "     Just  so  far  as  we 
see  in  the  world  something  more  than  "a  fortuitous 
concourse  of  atoms"  or  a  mechanical  succession  of 
vital   processes,   we   see   what   man's   spirit   has 
created  and  now  maintains.     Just  so  far  as  we 
find  a  rational  meaning  in  the  world,  we  find  what 
man  has  put  there.     Just  so  far  as  we  behold  a 
standard  of  value,  which  makes  some  things  useful 
and  others  worthless,  we  behold  what  man  has  set 
up  for  judgment  and  guidance.     Truth,  goodness, 
beauty— all  these  things  upon  which  the  worth  of 
life  so  exclusively  depends  that  we  would  gladly 
die,  if  need  be,  that  they  may  be  perpetuated  and 
enlkrged— these  belong  to  man's  spirit!     Until  he 
was,  these  were  not;  and  if  he  shall  ever  cease  to 
be,  these  also  at  that  same  moment  shall  pass 

/way !  , 

What  this  means,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 

immortal  hope,  is  manifest.     For  who  can  consider 

the  creative  contribution  which  man  has  made  to 

the  material  universe  without  being  convinced  that 

his  spirit  is  undying?     It  certainly  would  be  a 

strangely  irrational  state  of  affairs  if  the  being, 

whose  mind  and  heart  have  put  into  the  world  all 

the  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  it  contains,  can 

pass  away  like  "the  grass  which  today  is  and  to- 


Intimations  of  Immortality        loi 

morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven, "  while  the  evolving 
aggregate  of  indestructible  matter  and  persistent 
energy  sweeps  on  into  endless  life!     To  the  man 
who  can  believe  that  the  sculptor  is  less  important 
than  the  clay  which  he  models,  that  the  painter 
has  less  of  enduring  reality  within  his  dreaming 
soul  than  the  pigments  which  he  spreads  upon  his 
canvas,  that  Abt  Vogler  will  become  but  a  handful 
of   worthless  and  nameless  dust  long   before  the 
organ  which  he  awakened  to  matchless  harmonies 
has  crumbled  to  ruin,  this  idea  may  not  seem  quite 
utterly  preposterous.     But   to  those  of  us  who 
believe  that  the  whole  is  greater  than  any  of  its 
parts,  that  the  doer  is  more  significant  than  the 
thing  done,  that  the  spirit  of  man  is  infinitely 
more  than  "the  dust  of  the  ground"  into  which, 
like  another  Yahveh,  he  breathes  "the  breath  of 
life,"  such  a  conception  is  impossible.     If  there 
can  be  any  question  of  primacy  between  the  worker 
and  the  work,  the  creator  and  the  creation,  the 
spirit  and  the  logos,  it  is  the  former  and  not  the 
latter  which  must  be  regarded  as   "Alpha  and 
Omega,    the    beginning    and    the    end."     "By 
reality,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,   "we  mean  per- 
sistence in  consciousness.  "^     If  this  be  true,  then 
it  follows  that  the  world  of  matter  and  of  force  has 
no  reality  save  as  it  persists  in  consciousness; 
and  that  consciousness  must  therefore  itself  per- 
sist as  the  condition  of  this  reality.     This  means, 
in  the  last  analysis,  that  if  there  is  anything  real 

^  See  First  Principles ,  page  163. 


102 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


and  persistent  in  the  world  it  is  consciousness! 
And  this  means  in  turn,  if  "logic  is  logic,"  that 
the  spirit  of  man  is  immortal! 

But  suppose  this  line  of  reasoning  be  faulty,  as 
it  very  well  may  be!     Then  are  we  not  led  into  a 
worse  state  than  ever?    For  if  man  ''is  soon  gone," 
it  follows,  does  it  not,  that  all  these  meanings  and 
values,  which  alone  make  the  world  significant  and 
life  worth  Hving,  are  also  * '  soon  gone  "  ?     For  this 
one  thing  is  certain,  as  Dr.  Dole  points  out  impres- 
sively, *' there  is  no  such  thing  as  justice,  truth, 
or  love  in  the  abstract."^     Justice  exists  only 
because  men  are  just;  truth  is  real  only  because 
men  are  true;  love  is  "the  greatest  thing  m  the 
world"    only    because    men    love.     These    great 
conceptions  of  the  spirit  are  as  permanent  as  the 
soul  of  man,  and  no  more!     Which  means  that  if 
man   dies,   then   truth,   goodness,   beauty,   faith, 
hope,  love,  the  dreams  of  the  old  and  the  visions 
of  the  young,  die  as  well!     Our  eternal  values  are 
not  eternal  but  passing !     The  things  which  glorify 
nature  and  ennoble  life  are  not  reahties  but  illu- 
sions!     That   mighty    church   of   the   spirit,    so 
wonderfully  described  by  Charles  Rann  Kennedy, 
in  his  Servant  in  the  House,  as  made  up  of 

the  beating  of  human  hearts,  ...  the  nameless 
music  of  men^s  souls,  ...  the  brawny  trunks  of 
heroes  .   the  faces  of  little  children   ...   the 

joined'  hands    of    comrades   ...   the    numberless 

I  See  The  Hope  of  Immortality,  page  19. 


Intimations  of  Immortality        103 

musings  of  all  the  dreamers  of  the  world,  ...  the 
burden  of  unutterable  anguish  .  .  .  and  the  tune  of 
a  great  laughter.'  .    .    . 

is  but  a  mirage  of  the  desert !  The  realm  of  matter 
and  force,  of  amoeba  and  protozoa,  of  bird  and 
mammal,  exists— but  not  the  realm  of  poets,  seers, 
prophets,  heroes,  and  lovers! 

This  is  possible,  of  course.    Almost  anything  is 
possible!     But  to  say  that  it  is  fundamentally 
irrational   is  to  express  it   mildly.     It   is   incon- 
ceivable that  the  vast  realm  of  the  spirit,  which  is 
the  slow  creation  of  children's  laughter,  women*s 
tears,  and  men's  labour,  is  doomed  to  pass  "as  a 
flood  or  as  a  watch  in  the  night."     Suppose,  for 
example,  that  the  world  should  suddenly  enter  the 
poison  belt  of  A.  Conan  Doyle,  or  be  visited  by  the 
comet  of  H.  G.  Wells,  and  all  humanity  be  smitten 
in  one  fell  instant !     Would  this  mean  that  all  the 
ideals  of  truth  and  standards  of  virtue  which  the 
race  has  won  at  so  great  a  cost,  through  so  many 
centuries  of  sacrificial  endeavour,  would  at  once  be 
blotted  from  the  universe?     Nay,  we  do  not  have 
to  imagine  such  a  cataclysm  as  this  to  make  our 
point.     The  dilemma  is  with  us  at  this  moment! 
For  we  know  that,  in  a  few  aeons  hence,  this  earth 
will  become  uninhabitable,  and  the  last  man  lay 
himself  down  to  die.     And  are  we  to  believe  that, 
when  this  moment  comes,  the  frozen  earth  will  still 
be  keeping  every  atom  intact  and  registering  in  its 

'  See  Act  II. 


^tisMMy  ...J-iJ'«a».M  ~>.- 


A-m^g/vrw  ' 


104 


Is  Death  the  End? 


material  every  impact  of  force,  but  all  the  high 
values  which  made  it  once  worth  while  to  study 
its  elements  and  forces— the  human  and  spiritual 
values  that  men  have  been  working  out  with  their 
toil,  their  tears,  their  blood— will  have  utterly 
vanished?  If  so,  then  we  are  confronted  with  a 
strange  and  terrible  paradox.  Humanity,  through 
all  its  aeons  of  existence,  has  been  playing  with  . 
shadows  and  chasing  phantoms!  What  we  call 
progress  and  enhghtenment  is  but  a  fool's  paradise! 
The  men  who  have  sought  truth  through  all  her 
devious  paths,  who  have  fought  for  freedom  on 
bloody  battle-fields,  who  have  dreamed  of  beauty 
in  lonely  garrets  and  dark  cellars,  who  have 
sacrificed  money,  friends,  reputation,  life  itself 
for  the  cause  of  justice,— the  saints  and  martyrs 
who  for  the  faith  that  was  in  them,  ''had  trial  of 
mockings  and  scourgings,  yea,  moreover  of  bonds 
and  imprisonments "  .  .  .  these  have  been  grossly 
deceived  and  have  died  pitifully  in  vain.  And 
what  is  more — we  ourselves  are  likewise  deceived 
in  haiUng  these  men  as  the  noblest  of  their  kind, 
and  trying  to  follow  in  their  footsteps.  Not  Christ 
is  the  true  leader  but  CaHban,  who  mused  of  God, 

*Believeth  with  the  life,  the  pain  shall  stop. 
His  dam  held  different,  that  after  death 
He  both  plagued  enemies  and  feasted  friends: 
Idly!  He  doth  his  worst  in  this  our  life. 
Giving  just  respite  lest  we  die  through  pain. 
Saving  last  pain  for  worst,  with  which,  an  end!  ' 

•See  Browning's  Caliban  on  Setebos. 


Intimations  of  Immortality        105 

But  such  a  "hopeless  confusion  of  all  that  we 
know  about  values,"  as  Dr.  Dole  puts  it,  marks 
* '  the  height  of  the  ridiculous. "  "  Our  intelligence 
reacts  from  such  a  doctrine."'  If  we  know 
anything  at  all,  we  know  that  truth  is  real,  that 
beauty  is  a  fact,  that  faith,  hope,  and  love  abide! 
Which  means  that  the  soul  of  man,  which  first 
gave  life  to  these  ideals  and  in  which  alone  they 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being  from  age  to 
age,  is  immortal ! 

Nowhere  is  the  great  idea  of  man  as  the  creator 
of  eternal  values,  and  hence  himself  eternal, 
expressed  more  beautifully  than  in  Plato. 

Tell  me  then  [says  Socrates  in  the  Phaedo],  what  is 
that  the  inherence  of  which  renders  the  body  alive? 
The  soul  [Cebes  replied]. 
And  is  this  always  the  case? 
Yes,  he  said,  of  course. 

Then  whatever  the  soul  possesses,  to  that  she  comes 
bearing  life? 
Yes,  certainly. 

And  is  there  any  opposite  to  life? 
There  is,  he  said. 
And  what  is  that? 
Death. 

And  will  the  soul  .    .    .  ever  receive  the  opposite 
of  what  she  brings? 

Impossible,  replied  Cebes.    .    .    . 
Then  the  soul  is  immortal? 
Yes,  he  said. 

*  See  The  Hope  of  Immortality,  page  i8. 


io6 


Is  Death  the  End? 


And  may  we  say  that  this  has  been  proven? 
Yes,  abundantly  proven,  Socrates,  [he  replied].^ 


VII 


All  this  is  wonderfully  convincing  to  any  one 
who  has  even  a  glimmering  sense  of  what  the  values 
of  life  really  mean,  and  of  how  these  values  are 
only  experienced  in  and  through  persons.  There  is 
one  possibility  involved  in  this  argument,  however, 
which  has  not  been  mentioned  as  yet,  but  which, 
if  recognized,  would  vitiate  all  that  we  have  been 
saying.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that,  while  it  is  true 
that  only  through  the  continuance  of  personality 
can  we  have  any  guarantee  of  the  continuance  of 
those  things  which  alone  give  meaning  and  value 
to  the  world,  it  is  also  true,  that  the  spirit  of  God 
can  just  as  well  give  this  guarantee  as  the  soul  of 
man.  If  humanity,  in  other  words,  should  sud- 
denly cease  to  be,  God  would  still  live,  and  in  him 
would  the  values  of  life  find  the  condition  of  their 
reality. 

In  this  sense  [says  Professor  William  Adams  Brown, 
interpreting  this  point  of  view  in  The  Christian  Hope], 
idealism  is  quite  compatible  with  the  denial  of  individ- 
ual immortality.  All  that  is  necessry  is  that  spiritual 
values  should  persist,  and  this  is  sufficiently  conserved 
if  ...  we  believe  in  the  Absolute  Spirit  in  whose 
infinite  experience  all  values  are  embraced  and  persist.^ 

» See  Dialogues,  trans,  by  Jowett,  vol.  ii.,  page  253. 
»See  The  Christian  Hope,  page  183. 


Intimations  of  Immortality        107 


It  is  this  consideration,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
which  introduces  us  to  the  last  and  highest  intima- 
tion which  the  nature  of  man  can  give  us  of  the  real- 
ity of  the  immortal  hope.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that 
the  spiritual  aspects  of  human  life  cannot  be  ex- 
plained save  as  they  are  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
their  source  and  end  in  God;  and  that  this  explana- 
tion involves  the  principle  of  man's  eternity  with 
God.  Undoubtedly  this  may  be  taken  to  mean,  as 
many  a  mystic  has  declared,  that  "we  are  but  tran- 
sient modes  of  the  Infinite  spirit,  temporary  vehicles 
through  which,  for  his  own  purposes,  he  expresses 
a  part  of  his  meaning";  and  that  "when  we  have 
served  our  day,  our  place  will  be  taken  by  other 
modes,  who  will  serve  the  divine  purposes  as  well  as 
we. "'  But  it  is  much  more  rational,  to  my  mind, 
to  contend  not  that  man  is  a  material  form  or  mode, 
in  which  the  Absolute  temporarily  expresses  its 
life,  but  that  man  is  the  spiritual  offspring  of  God, 
and  thus  the  sharer  with  him  of  eternity.  The 
distinction  here  is  frankly  between  the  philoso- 
phical conception  of  God  as  Absolute  Being  and 
man  as  a  mere  emanation  thereof,  and  the  religious 
conception  of  God  as  a  Father  and  man  as  his  child. 
If  God  and  man  are  mere  spiritual  abstractions, 
then  indeed  may  man  be  but  a  vessel  into  which 
a  portion  of  the  infinite  is  temporarily  conveyed. 
But  if  God  and  man  are  persons,  then  is  man  the 
child  of  God,  and  if  a  child,  then  an  heir,  heir  of 
God  and  joint  heir  with  Christ  of  life  eternal! 

'  The  Christian  Hope,  page  183. 


iMFa^vHmaMN 


i 


1 08 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Just  here  is  the  final  argument  for  the  immortal 
jiQpe — the  argument  from  religion!     If  we  do  not 
accept  the  religious  interpretation  of  the  universe, 
if  we  are  content  to  agree  with  Haeckel  and  his 
fellow-materiaHsts    that    the    world    is    a    great 
mechanism  which  finds  its  all-sufificient  explana- 
tion in  the  ceaseless  interaction  between  matter 
and  force,  if  we  can  see  in  man  nothing  more  than 
the  highest  form  of  animal  where  mental  and 
spiritual  life  is  only  a  kind  of  secretion  of  the 
brain  as  bile  is  a  secretion  of  the  liver,  why  then 
we  can  easily  get  along  without  the  conception  of 
immortality.     But  if  we  believe  that  reUgion  is 
*'an  everlasting  reaHty,"  that  God  is  the  ultimate 
source  of  the  world  and  man  the  highest  expression 
of  his  divine  Hfe,  that  the  forms  and  ceremonies, 
prayers  and  praises  of  religions  the  world  around 
represent  genuine,  although  faltering,  endeavours 
of  man  to  get  into  relation  with  that  divine  spirit 
"in  which  he  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being,  '* 
then  we  must  accept  the  immortal  hope  as  involved 
in  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  this  spiritual  inter- 
pretation of  the  whole.     It  is  just  here  that  Jesus 
made  his  great  contribution  to  this  field  of  thought. 
He  spoke  little  of  the  life  to  come,  if  we  may  trust 
the  Synoptic  record.     A  student  will  search  Mat- 
theWy  Mark,  and  Luke  in  vain  for  any  arguments 
in  substantiation  of  the  doctrine  of  immortaUty. 
Direct  testimony  is  conspicuous  in  his  teaching 
by  its  absence.     What  Jesus  did  was  to  elevate 
the  whole  conception  of  humanity.     He  gave  such 


y 


Intimations  of  Immortality        109 

dignity  and  worth  to  human  nature  that  the 
thought  of  its  endless  continuance  became  natural. 
He  disclosed  capacities  and  powers  within  the 
human  heart  which  inevitably  suggested  things 
infinite  and  eternal.  He  brought  man,  in  other 
words,  into  immediate  kinship  with  God,  and 
thus  gave  so  clear  a  revelation  of  man  as  the 
child  of  God,  that  it  became  forthwith  as  necessary 
to  think  of  the  eternity  of  the  one  as  of  the  other. 
With  him  and  through  him,  the  idea  of  immortality 
became  identical  with  the  idea  of  God.  ''God 
is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.  '*  ^ 


VIII 


Here,  now,  are  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the 
intimations  of  immortahty!  They  are  all  to  be 
found  in  the  nature  of  man  as  a  moral  being,  an 
inhabitant  of  a  realm  spiritual  and  not  material, 
a  child  of  God  and  not  a  creature  of  earth!  All 
this  long  chapter  may  be  summed  up  in  the  ancient 
confessio  fidei  of  Cicero : 

When  I  consider  the  faculties  with  which  the  human 
soul  is  endowed — its  amazing  celerity,  its  wonderful 
power  of  recollecting  past  events,  and  its  sagacity  in 
discerning  the  future,  together  with  its  numberless 
discoveries  in  the  arts  and  sciences — I  feel  a  conscious 
conviction  that  this  active  comprehensive  principle 
cannot  possibly  be  of  a  mortal  nature.  * 

^  See  Matthew  xxii  :  32. 

'  Quoted  in  Savage's  Minister's  Handbook,  page  62. 


# 


no 


Is  Death  the  End? 


"What  a  piece  of  work  is  man!"  says  Hamlet. 
*'How  noble  in  reason!  how  infinite  in  faculty!  in 
form  and  moving  how  express  and  admirable! 
in  action  how  like  an  angel!  in  apprehension  how 
like  a  god!'*  Such  a  spirit  may  be  a  mere  ** quin- 
tessence of  dust."     But  is  it  likely? 


CHAPTER  IV 

IMMORTALITY  AND  EVOLUTION 

With  respect  to  immortality  nothing  shows  me  how 
strong  and  almost  instinctive  a  belief  it  is,  as  the  con- 
sideration of  the  view  now  held  by  most  physicists, 
namely,  that  the  sun  with  all  the  planets  will  in  time 
grow  too  cold  for  life.  .  .  .  Believing  as  I  do  that 
man  in  the  distant  future  will  be  a  far  more  perfect 
creature  than  he  now  is,  it  is  an  intolerable  thought 
that  he  and  all  other  sentient  beings  are  doomed  to 
complete  annihilation  after  such  long-continued  slow 
progress.— Charles  Darwin,  in  Life  and  Letters,  volume 
i.,  page  282. 


TO  any  one  who  is  familiar  with  philosophical 
and  religious  thought,  it  is  obvious  that  there 
is  nothing  particularly  new  in  the  arguments  for 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  life  adduced  and  interpreted 
in  the  last  chapter.  These  intimations  of  immor- 
tality contained  within  his  own  nature,  man 
recognized  comparatively  early  in  his  career; 
and  they  have  formed  the  substance  of  his  thought 
upon  this  question  from  the  time  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  down  to  the  present  age.  If  they  are 
stated  somewhat  differently  today  than  formerly, 
it  is  only  because  the  widely  expanding  knowledge 
of  our  epoch  has  given  us  new  facts,  novel  points 
of  view,  unexpected  confirmations,  and  a  strange 

III 


112 


Is  Death  the  End? 


terminology.  In  essence,  however,  these  argu- 
ments are  none  other  than  those  which  have  satis- 
fied the  minds  and  consoled  the  hearts  of  men 
from  the  beginning. 


A  new  era  in  this,  as  in  every  other  field  of 
thought,  however,  was  opened  up  by  the  pubHca- 
tion  of  Charles  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  in  1859 
and  the  establishment  therewith  of  the  world- 
shaking  doctrine  of  evolution.  This  event  marks 
a  crisis  in  the  development  of  human  knowledge 
and  speculation  which  may  safely  be  described  as 
unexampled  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

Whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  verdict  of  posterity 
upon  this  or  that  opinion  which  Mr.  Darwin  has 
propounded  [said  Professor  Huxley,  as  President  of 
the  Royal  Society],  ...  the  broad  fact  remains  that, 
since  the  publication,  and  by  reason  of  the  publication 
of  The  Origin  of  Species,  the  fundamental  conceptions 
of  living  nature  have  been  completely  changed. 

And  referring  to  the  famous  remark  of  Archimedes 
about  the  lever,  he  continued,  ''The  Origin  of 
Species  proved  itself  to  be  the  fixed  point  which  the 
general  doctrine  of  evolution  needed  in  order  to 
move  the  world.  "^  The  fact  of  the  matter  is, 
not  merely  the  field  of  natural  science,  but  the 

^Address,  The   Darwin   Memorial,  June   9,  1885.     See   Dar- 
winiana,  page  249. 


Immortality  and  Evolution        113 

whole  field  of  human  thought,  was  transformed 
by  this  great  book.  The  forms  which  we  employ 
today  are  different  forms,  the  universe  upon  which 
we  look  is  a  different  universe,  the  individual  and 
social  ideals  which  we  seek  are  different  ideals, 
the  lives  which  we  live  are  different  lives,  because 
The  Origin  of  Species  was  written  and  given  to  the 
world.  In  the  light  of  the  facts  observed  and  the 
conclusions  formulated  by  this  one  supreme  in- 
vestigator and  thinker,  all  knowledge  had  to  be 
cast  into  the  melting-pot  of  the  new  evolutionary 
point  of  view.  Every  idea  had  to  be  reconsidered 
from  the  very  beginning.  And  the  idea  of  immor- 
tality was  no  exception  to  the  rule ! 


II 


The  connection  between  the  immortal  hope  and 
this  great  doctrine  of  evolution  becomes  apparent 
when  we  see  that  not  least  impressive  of  the  con- 
sequences which  followed  upon  the  discoveries  of 
the  great  scientist  of  Down  was  what  he  himself 
forecasted,  in  the  last  chapter  of  his  epoch-making 
book,  as  the  possibility  that  "light  (would)  be 
thrown  on  the  origin  of  man  and  his  history"— 
a  speculation  amply  confirmed  by  Huxley,  when 
he  published  his  treatise  on  Man's  Place  in  Nature, 
and  still  later  by  Darwin  himself  in  his  monu- 
mental work.  The  Descent  of  Man  !  In  all  previous 
ages  of  human  thought,  man  had  been  almost 
universally  regarded  as  an  entirely  distinct  and 

8 


114 


Is  Death  the  End? 


isolated  specimen  of  the  divine  handiwork.  All 
species  of  life,  to  be  sure,  were  regarded  as  having 
had  their  origin  in  certain  special  acts  of  creation. 
But  man  was  a  being  very  particularly  apart  from 
every  other  form  of  existence.  He  was  not  in 
any  sense  '*a  living  creature";  on  the  contrary, 
he  was  none  other  than  ''a  living  soul."  He  was 
*'made  in  God's  own  image,"  and  breathed  in  his 
nostrils  the  breath  of  God's  own  life.  When  the 
classic  chapters  of  Genesis  describe  man  as  having 
*' dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the 
earth,  and  over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth 
upon  the  earth,"  they  set  forth  the  only  relation 
which  humanity  was  ever  conceived  as  having  to 
the  lower  world  of  animal  life. 

All  this  was  immediately  transformed,  however, 
by  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  species  by  the  process 
of  natural  selection  through  the  struggle  for  sur- 
vival. The  ' '  light ' '  which  Darwin  presumed  from 
the  very  first  that  his  doctrine  would  throw  ''upon 
the  origin  of  man  and  his  history,"  revealed  that 
man  is  not  an  arbitrary  and  separate  creation  of 
God  at  all,  but,  like  the  fish  and  the  reptile,  the  bird 
and  the  monkey,  only  one  of  the  many  links  in  the 
apparently  endless  chain  of  unfolding  life.  Here 
at  the  beginning  of  things— if  such  a  beginning  may 
be  postulated  for  the  sake  of  argument— was  only 
a  flaming  ball  of  fire,  cast  off  in  some  moment  of 
awful  convulsion  by  the  rolling  sun.  Slowly  this 
planet  cooled,  shaped  itself  into  the  globe  which 


Immortality  and  Evolution       115 

we  now  see,  and  at  last,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  gave 
birth  to  the  first  faint  and  almost  imperceptible 
manifestations  of  earthly  life.     Slowly,  age  by  age, 
these  forms  of  life  evolved,  unfolding  into  ever  high- 
er and  more  complex  types  of  existences— plants, 
fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  mammals,  primates;  until 
finally,   in  some  distant  epoch  forever  engulfed 
in  the  darkness  of  aeons  unknown,  man  came  upon 
the  scene.     He  was  not  created  arbitrarily  by  any 
divine  hand.     He  was  not  conceived  and  super- 
imposed upon  the  evolving  process  by  external 
power.     He    was    not    something   accidental,    or 
even  miraculous.     He  was  simply  the  next  step 
in  the  development  of  earthly  life.     Not  more 
naturally  did  the  reptile  spring  from  the  fish,  the 
bird  from  the  reptile,  or  the  mammal  from  the 
bird,  than  man,  in  his  turn  and  at  his  appointed 
hour,  sprang  directly  from  the  mammal.     If  man 
differed  in  any  way  from  what  had  preceded  him, 
it  was  a  difference  inherent  not  in  himself,  as  a 
separate  created  being,   but  in  the  place  which 
he  occupied  in  the  mounting  scale  of  existence  as 
the    latest    and    therefore    necessarily    the    most 
wonderful  manifestation  of  all.     At  bottom,  how- 
ever, he  was  like  every  other  living  creature— not 
something   unique,    but    an    integral    *'part"    of 
**one  stupendous  whole. " 

In  the  beginning,  of  course,  this  description  of 
man's  place  in  nature  was  little  more  than  a  postu- 
late, very  tentatively  put  forward  by  the  early 
evolutionists,  who  were  at  this  time  more  con- 


ii6 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Immortah'ty  and  Evolution 


117 


cerned  with  earth-worms  and  pigeons  than  with 
men  and  women.  With  surprising  rapidity,  how- 
ever, facts  began  to  multiply  in  support  of  this 
theory;  and  these  facts  have  today  become  so 
infinite  in  number  and  so  incontestable  in  char- 
acter that  we  no  longer  hesitate  to  include  man  in 
the  cosmic  process  of  evolution.  Darwin  himself, 
the  most  cautious  of  men,  dared  to  assert  this 
fact  as  early  as  1872. 

The  main  conclusion  here  arrived  at  [he  says  in  his 
The  Descent  of  Man],  ...  is  that  man  is  descended 
from  some  less  highly  organized  form.  The  grounds 
upon  which  this  conclusion  rests  will  never  be  shaken, 
for  the  close  similarity  between  man  and  the  lower 
animals  in  embryonic  development,  as  well  as  in 
innumerable  points  of  structure  and  constitution 
.  .  .  are  facts  which  cannot  be  disputed  .... 
It  is  incredible  that  these  facts  should  speak  falsely. 
.  .  .  The  close  resemblance  of  the  embryo  of  man 
to  that,  for  instance,  of  a  dog — the  construction  of  his 
skull,  limbs  and  whole  frame  on  the  same  plane  with 
that  of  other  mammals — the  occasional  reappearance 
of  various  structures  .  .  .  which  man  does  not 
normally  possess,  but  which  are  common  to  the  Quad- 
rumana — and  a  crowd  of  analogous  facts — all  point 
in  the  plainest  manner  to  the  conclusion  that  man  is 
the  codescendant  with  other  mammals  of  a  common 
progenitor.^ 

And  this  dictum,  thus  laid  down  by  the  great 

»  See  The  Descent  of  Man,  pages  620-21. 


i 

1 


1 


^ 


pioneer,  has  been  consistently  affirmed  by  all  who 
have  followed  in  his  footsteps. 

This  much  is  certain  [say  Professors  Jordan  and 
Kellogg,  m  their  book  on  Evolution  and  Animal  Life] 
mans  place  is  in  nature.  .  .  .  Man  is  like  the  other 
species  an  inhabitant  of  the  earth,  a  product  of  the 
laws  of  life:  his  characters  are  phases  in  the  long 
process  of  change  and  adaptation  to  which  all  organt 
isms  are  subject.  ...  The  common  heredity  of 
man  with  other  animals  is  as  well  estabhshed  as  any 
fact  can  be. ' 

And  John  Piske  states  the  same  thing  with  even 
greater  emphasis,  when  he  says,  in  The  Destiny  of 
Man:  ■' 

As  we  examine  the  records  of  past  hfe  upon  our  globe 
and  study  the  mutual  relations  of  the  living  things  that 
still  remain,  it  appears  that  the  higher  forms  of  life 
inc  uding  man  himself,  are  all  the  modified  descendants 
of  lower  forms.     Zoologically  speaking,  man  can  no 
^nger  be  regarded  as  a  creature  apart  by  himself. 
We  cannot  erect  an  order  on  purpose  to  contain  him 
as  Cuvier  tried  to  do.     Man  is  not  only  a  vertebrate 
a  mammal,  and  a  primate,  but  he  belongs  as  a  genus 
to  the  catarrhic  family  of  apes.     Such  is  the  conclusion 
to  which  the  scientific  world  has  come  within  a  quarter 
of  a  century  of  Mr.  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species,  and 
there  is  no  more  reason  for  supposing  that  this  con- 
clusion will  ever  be  gainsaid  than  for  supposing  that 
the  Copernican  astronomy  will  sometime  be  over- 
'  See  Evolution  and  Animal  Life,  page  467. 


Ii8 


Is  Death  the  End? 


thrown  and  the  concentric  spheres  of  Dante's  heaven 
reinstated  in  the  minds  of  men.' 


Ill 


*'He  who  believes  in  the  advancement  of  man 
from  some  low  organized  form,  will  naturally  ask 
how  does  this  bear  on  the  belief  in  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,"  writes  Charles  Darwin,  in  the  closing 
pages  of  his  The  Descefit  of  iT/an,^  without  himself 
venturing   an    answer   to   this   inquiry.     Others, 
however,  were  not  so  modest.     Almost  immedi- 
ately it  was  declared,  and  with  apparent  good 
reason,  that  this  linking  of  man  with  the  unfolding 
processes  of  nature  destroyed  once  for  all  every 
hope  that  the  human  mind  had  ever  conceived  of 
its  own  immortality.     So  long  as  it  was  possible 
to  regard  man  as  a  being  peculiarly  made  *'in 
the  image  of  God,"  it  was  possible,  if  not  inevitable, 
to  think  of  him  also  as  *'of  the  same  substance 
with  the  Father"  and  therefore  eternal.     Hence 
the  exclamation  of  the  Psalmist,  *'What  is  man 
that  thou  art  mindful  of  him,  or  the  son  of  man 
that  thou  visitest  him?     Thou  hast  made  him  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels  and  crowned  him  with 
glory  and  honor" — and  immortality!     But  now 
all  this  was  changed.     Man  was  not  made  **a 
little  lower  than  the  angels, "  but,  on  the  contrary, 
only  a  little  higher  than  the  brute  creatures  of 
the  jungle!     If  the  doctrine  of  evolution  meant 

^See  The  Destiny  of  Man,  page  19.  'See  page  627, 


Immortality  and  Evolution       119 

anything  at  all,  it  surely  meant  that  man  was  an 
integral  part  of  the  animal  creation,  and  as  such 
an  intimate  sharer  of  all  the  limitations  as  well  as 
the  powers  of  animal  existence.  At  one  stroke 
man  was  snatched  down  from  his  high  estate  in 
heaven,  and  hurled  into  the  ooze  and  slime  of  the 
primeval  origin  of  things  terrestrial.  The  birds 
and  beasts  are  his  forbears;  the  higher  apes  his 
nearer  relatives!  All  of  which  means  that  he  has 
no  more  chance  of  an  immortal  destiny  than  any 
other  living  thing  beneath  the  sun !  It  is  this  view 
originally  formed  in  the  early  Darwinian  days  as 
a  result  of  the  demonstration  of  the  origin  of  man 
from  below  rather  than  from  above,  which  Pro- 
fessor Ernst  Haeckel  lays  down  with  conviction 
in  his  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  which  was  published 
as  late  as  1899. 

If  the  human  soul  were  to  live  for  all  eternity  [he 
says,  in  the  famous  eleventh  chapter  entitled  The 
Immortality  of  the  Soul],  we  should  have  to  grant  the 
same  privilege  to  the  .  .  .  higher  animals,  at  least 
to  those  of  the  nearest  related  mammals  (apes,  dogs, 
etc.).  For  man  is  not  distinguished  from  them  by  a 
special  kind  of  soul,  or  by  any  peculiar  and  exclusive 
psychic  function,  but  only  by  a  higher  degree  of  psychic 
activity,  a  superior  stage  of  development.  In  par- 
ticular, consciousness — the  function  of  the  association 
of  ideas,  thought,  and  reason — has  reached  a  higher 
level  in  many  men  (by  no  means  in  all)  than  in  most 
of  the  animals.  Yet  this  difference  is  far  from  being 
so  great  as  is  popularly  supposed,  and  it  is  much 


120 


Is  Death  the  End? 


slighter  in  every  respect  than  the  corresponding 
difference  between  the  higher  and  lower  animal  souls, 
or  even  the  difference  between  the  highest  and  the 
lowest  stages  of  the  human  soul  itself.  If  we  ascribe 
'personal  immortality'  to  man,  we  are  bound  to 
grant  it  also  to  the  higher  animals.^ 

Such  an  extension  of  the  immortal  hope,  however, 
is  not,  in  Haeckel's  view,  possible.  Man  and  the 
animal  are  one  in  origin  and  essential  character, 
to  be  sure ;  but  this  must  mean  not  that  the  animal 
is  immortal  with  man,  but  rather  that  man  is 
mortal  with  the  animal.  ^ 

If  we  take  a  comprehensive  glance  [he  says],  at  all 
that  modern  anthropology,  psychology,  and  cosmology 
teach  with  regard  to  athanasia  (immortality),  we  are 
forced  to  this  definite  conclusion.  The  beHef  in  the 
immortaHty  of  the  human  soul  is  a  dogma  which  is  in 
hopeless  contradiction  with  the  most  solid  empirical 
truths  of  modern  science,^ 

an  affirmation  which  Haeckel  takes  pains  to  reiter- 
ate in  his  The  Wonders  of  Life,  as  though  to  prove 
that  the  chorus  of  protest  evoked  by  his  earlier 

*  See  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  page  201. 

» It  may  be  well  to  note  that  not  all  persons  have  found  the 
thought  of  the  immortality  of  animals — certain  ones,  at  least ! 
— inconceivable  or  even  unpleasant.  Witness  the  statement  of 
John  Galsworthy  in  reference  to  dogs!  "If  we  have  spirits,  they 
have.  If  we  know  after  our  departure  who  we  are,  they  do. 
No  one,  I  think,  who  really  longs  for  the  truth  can  ever  glibly 
say  which  it  will  be  for  dog  and  man — persistence  or  extinction  of 
consciousness." 

5  See  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  page  210. 


I  . 


ImmortaHty  and  Evolution       121 

book  could  not  alter  the  irrefragable  conclusions 
of  scientific  investigation ! ' 

All  this  sounds  rather  ancient  in  this  day  and 
generation.  For  within  a  couple  of  decades  after 
the  first  publication  of  Darwin's  discovery  and  the 
assertion  of  its  fatal  consequences  to  the  immortal 
hope,  a  decided  change  began  to  come  over  the 
situation.  It  began  to  be  doubted  very  seriously 
if  it  was  altogether  certain  that  man  was  so  inex- 
tricably bound  up  with  the  material  creation,  from 
which  he  had  undoubtedly  proceeded,  that  its 
doom  was  at  the  same  time  and  for  the  same 
reasons  his  own.  Man  is  at  one  with  the  brutes 
that  die  on  the  physical  side  without  any  question. 
But  what  about  the  mental  and  spiritual  side?  Is 
man  here  also  identical  with  his  forbears,  or  does 
he  possess  certain  distinctive  attributes  which  seem 
to  mark  him  off  as  something  decidedly  different  ? 
What  about  his  self-consciousness,  his  faculties 
of  reason,  his  association  of  ideas?  What  about 
his  memory,  his  moral  idealism,  his  loyalties  of 
personal  affection  and  social  consecration  ?  What 
about  those 

August  anticipations,  symbols,  types, 
Of  a  divine  splendour  ever  on  before 
In  that  eternal  circle  life  pursues, 

of  which  Browning  speaks  so  impressively?    What 
about    those    phenomena    revealed    by    William 

'  See  The  Wonders  of  Life,  page  64. 


i 


122 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Wordsworth,  and  shared  in  to  some  degree  or  other 
by  all  who  think  and  brood  and  love : 

.  .  .  those  obstinate  questionings 

Of  sense  and  outward  things, 

Fallings  from  us,  vanishings; 

Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized, 
High  instincts  before  which  our  mortal  nature 
(Doth)  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised; 

But  for  those  first  affections, 

Those  shadowy  recollections. 

Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain-Hght  of  all  our  day. 
Are  yet  the  master  Ught  of  all  our  seeing. 

Do  these  realities  have  any  counterpart  in  the 
animal  realm?  Is  man  here  like  or  unlike  the 
creatures  who  preceded  him?  Is  it  not  certain 
that  in  such  phenomena  we  see  the  attributes  of  a 
new  creation,  the  evolution  of  a  new  form  of  life, 
the  dawn  of  a  new  and  greater  day  than  ever  has 
greeted  hitherto  the  horizon  of  the  world?  Cer- 
tainly the  differences  here  specified  far  surpass  in 
significance  any  identities  of  physical  structure  and 
constitution.  At  first,  I  doubt  not,  man  could  not 
have  been  distinguished  from  the  other  creatures 
from  the  loins  of  which  he  had  sprung  and  from 
the  midst  of  which  he  was  just  beginning  to  emerge. 
But  something  there  was  within  him,  which  con- 
tained within  itself  the  possibility  of  endless  devel- 
opment beyond  and  above  anything  that  had  ever 


.} 


i 


n 

'i 


1  S 


Immortality  and  Evolution       123 

been  known  before.  It  was  this  which  made  man 
even  at  this  early  moment  something  different 
from  the  brutes  about  him;  which  persuaded  him 
to  turn  aside  from  all  paths  that  had  been  followed 
heretofore,  and  make  a  new  one  for  his  own  feet; 
which  made  him  stand  erect  and  look  upward  to 
the  stars  and  dream  of  gods;  which  made  him 
think,  and  then  utter  his  thoughts  in  speech,  and 
finally  record  his  speech  in  writing;  which  made 
him  in  short,  to  be  a  man,  however  barbarous,  and 
thus  started  him  upon  that  march  of  progress 
which  has  led  him  onward  and  upward  to  the 
heights  upon  which  he  stands  at  the  present  day. 
A  marvellous  step  was  this  when  the  first  man  was 
born.  Surely  it  must  have  been  at  this  glorious 
moment  in  the  past  that  "the  morning  stars  sang 
together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy!'* 


IV 


Now  just  here,  in  this  great  principle  of 
Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference, 

do  we  have  the  answer  to  the  Haeckelian  conten- 
tion that,  because  man  is  physically  the  product 
of  the  animal  creation,  therefore  he  must  die  like 
any  brute  of  the  field,  or  else  this  brute  must  itself 
be  endowed  with  immortality.  Sure  as  is  **  man's 
place  in  nature,"  equally  sure  is  his  distinction 
from  other  living  things.  And  this  distinction, 
it  is  to  be  carefully  noted,  resides  in  that  very  realm 


124 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Immortality  and  Evolution        125 


of  things  spiritual  wherein  the  gift  of  eternal  life 
must  appear,  if  it  is  anywhere  to  be  found !  Man's 
physical  descent  from  the  animals  does  not  in 
any  sense  involve  the  sacrifice  of  his  spiritual 
endowments,  and  his  consequent  immortality. 
On  the  contrary,  this  physical  descent  only  serves 
to  emphasize  and  exalt  these  endowments.  Some- 
where in  that  long  process  of  organic  development 
from  a  microscopic  spherule  of  living  protoplasm 
on  the  one  hand  to  "Plato's  brain  and  the  good 
Christ's  heart"  upon  the  other,  the  spirit  of  eternal 
life  entered  into  the  creature,  and  he  became  upon 
that  instant  "a  living  soul."  Just  how  or  when 
this  metamorphosis  took  place,  it  is  probably 
impossible  to  determine.  Nor  is  the  unveiling 
of  this  mystery  essential  to  the  demonstration  of 
the  fact. 

Few  persons  [  says  Darwin  ],  feel  any  anxiety 
from  the  impossibility  of  determining  at  what  previ- 
ous period  in  the  development  of  the  individual,  from 
the  first  trace  of  a  minute  germinal  vesicle,  man  be- 
comes an  immortal  being;  and  there  is  no  greater 
cause  for  anxiety  because  the  period  cannot  possibly 
be  determined  in  the  gradually  ascending  organic 
scale.  ^ 

And  yet  explanations  of  this  step  of  the  evolution- 
ary process  have  not  been  wanting.  And  in  order 
that  the  absence  of  explanation  may  not  be  inter- 
preted as  failure  of  explanation,  I  venture  to  out- 

*  See  The  Descent  of  Man,  page  627. 


\ 


line  at  this  point  two  of  the  most  typical — both, 
it  should  be  noted,  the  theories  of  men  who  must 
be  numbered  among  the  most  distinguished 
scientists  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

First,  there  is  the  doctrine  set  forth  by  Joseph 
Le  Conte,  for  many  years  professor  of  geology  and 
natural  history  at  the  University  of  California, 
in  his  famous  book  on  Evolution  and  Its  Relation 
to  Religious  Thought. ' 

I  believe  [he  said,  summing  up  his  ideas  upon  this 
question],  that  the  spirit  of  man  was  developed  out  of 
the  anima  or  conscious  principle  of  animals,  and  that 
this,  again,  was  developed  out  of  the  lower  forms  of 
life-force,  and  this  in  its  turn  out  of  the  chemical  and 
physical  forces  of  Nature;  and  that  at  a  certain  stage 
in  this  gradual  development,  viz.  with  man,  it  ac- 
quired the  property  of  immortality  precisely  as  it 
now,  in  the  individual  history  of  each  man  at  a  certain 
stage,  acquires  the  capacity  of  abstract  thought. 

In  elucidation  of  this  view,  Le  Conte  traces 
the  evolution  of  organic  life  through  its  various 
stages,  and  shows  how  each  step  of  advancement 
is  marked  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  new  powers 
and  properties,  never  apparent  and  wholly  unimagi- 
nable before.  "There  was  a  time  in  the  history 
of  the  earth, "  he  reminds  us,  "when  only  physical 
forces  existed. "  At  a  certain  stage  in  the  process 
of  development,  however,  "chemical  affinity  came 

*  For  what  follows  see  pages  313-30. 


126 


Is  Death  the  End? 


into  being" — a  new  form  of  force  never  seen 
before,  having  new  and  peculiar  phenomena, 
''though  doubtless  derived  from  the  preceding.** 
Ages  passed  away,  and  then  suddenly,  when  con- 
ditions were  favourable,  life  appeared — ''a  new 
and  higher  form  of  force,  producing  a  still  more 
peculiar  group  of  phenomena,  but  still  derived 
from  the  preceding." 

Ages  upon  ages  again  passed  away  [he  continues], 
during  which  this  life-force  took  on  higher  and  higher 
forms,  .  .  .  until  finally  when  the  time  was  fully 
ripe  and  conditions  were  exceptionally  favourable, 
spirit,  self-conscious,  self-determining,  rational,  and 
moral,  appeared — a  new  and  still  higher  form  of  force, 
but  still,  as  I  am  persuaded,  derived  from  the  pre- 
ceding. 

Thus  has  life  gone  on  developing  from  stage  to 
stage,  each  decisive  onward  step  distinguished  by 
the  sudden  appearance  of  new  properties  and 
powers,  all  of  them  derivative  to  be  sure,  but  no 
one  of  them  foreseen  or  even  foreseeable.  This 
whole  process,  says  Professor  Le  Conte,  interpreted 
in  ultimate  terms,  is  nothing  but  the  gradual 
evolution   "of  spirit  in  the  womb  of  Nature." 

The  universal  Divine  energy,  unindividuated,  diffused, 
is  what  we  call  physical  and  chemical  force.  The 
same  energy  in  higher  form,  itself  individuated,  but 
only  yet  very  imperfectly,  is  what  we  call  the  life- 
force  of  plants.  The  same  energy,  more  fully  individ- 
uated,  but   not   completely,   we  call   the  anima  of 


f| 


i 


.1 

1 


Immortality  and  Evolution       127 

animals.  The  animaj  or  animal  soul,  as  time  went  on, 
was  individuated  more  and  more,  until  it  resembled 
and  foreshadowed  the  spirit  of  man.  Finally,  still 
the  same  energy,  completely  individuated  as  a  sepa- 
rate entity  and  therefore  self-conscious,  capable  of 
separate  existence  and  therefore  immortal,  we  call  the 
spirit  of  man. 

In  man,  in  other  words,  the  omnipresent  Divine 
energy,  after  unnumbered  centuries  of  what  may 
be  called  embryonic  development,  at  last  came  to 
birth,  and  the  new  and  distinctive  property  or 
power  which  it  assumed,  at  this  marvellous  instant 
of  final  realization,  was  immortality.  **As  the 
organic  embryo  at  birth  reaches  independent  ma- 
terial or  temporal  life,"  says  Le  Conte,  **even 
so  spirit  embryo  by  birth  attains  independent 
spiritual  or  eternal  life ! "  ^ 

A  wholly  different  interpretation  of  this  same 
fact  is  given  us  by  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  co- 
discoverer  with  Charles  Darwin  of  the  great 
biological  principle  of  natural  selection.^  Le 
Conte,  as  we  have  seen,  is  very  emphatic  in  his 
belief  that  immortality  is  an  attribute  which  has 
grown  out  of  something  already  existing  in  earlier 
and  lower  forms  of  organic,  and  perhaps  inorganic, 

^  "I  can  see  no  insuperable  difficulty  in  the  notion  that,  at 
some  period  of  the  evolution  of  humanity,  this  divine  spark  may 
have  acquired  sufficient  concentration  and  steadiness  to  survive 
the  wreck  of  material  forms  and  endure  forever." — John  Fiske. 
See  The  Destiny  of  Man,  page  117. 

^  For  what  follows  on  this  point  see  Darwinism,  pages  461-78. 


128 


Is  Death  the  End? 


life.  Wallace,  on  the  other  hand,  is  equally  empha- 
tic in  his  opinion  that  the  immortal  spirit  is  a  ''new 
thing  added  at  once,  out  of  hand,  to  what  was 
already  existing  before. "  It  is  somewhat  difficult 
to  get  hold  of  his  exact  idea  in  all  of  its  ramifica- 
tions, but  his  basic  conception  seems  to  be  that  of 
"a  world  of  spirit,  to  which  the  world  of  matter 
is  altogether  subordinate."  Sure  evidence  of  the 
reality  of  such  a  world  as  this,  he  finds  in  the 
existence  in  man  of  certain  strange  faculties,  such 
as  the  mathematical,  the  musical,  and  the  artistic, 
the  origin  and  development  of  which  cannot  be 
explained  on  the  basis  of  anything  that  is  known 
in  the  material  realm. 

These  faculties  [he  says],  either  do  not  exist  at  all  or 
exist  in  a  very  rudimentary  condition  in  savages,  but 
appear  almost  suddenly  and  in  perfect  development  in 
the  higher  races.  These  same  faculties  are  further 
distinguished  by  their  sporadic  character,  being  well 
developed  only  in  a  very  small  proportion  of  the 
community;  and  by  the  enormous  amount  of  varia- 
tion in  their  development.  .  .  .  Each  of  these 
characteristics  is  totally  inconsistent  with  any  action 
of  the  law  of  natural  selection  in  the  production  of  the 
faculties  referred  to;  and  the  facts  taken  in  their 
entirety,  compel  us  to  recognize  some  origin  for  them 
wholly  distinct  from  that  which  has  served  to  account 
for  the  animal  characteristics  of  man.^ 

And  this  origin  he  finds  in  what  he  calls  "the 
unseen  universe  of  Spirit."^ 

»  See  Darwinism,  page  473.  *  Ibid.,  page  478. 


if 

« 


Immortality  and  Evolution        129 

Man,  on  this  hypothesis,  is  a  twofold  creature. 
Superimposed  upon  his  animal  nature  is  a  spiritual 
nature,  which  represents  what  Wallace  calls,  in 
his  book  entitled  Social  Environme7it  and  Moral 
Progress,  "an  influx  of  some  portion  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Deity. "^  By  virtue  of  this  "influx,'*  man 
became  a  living  soul.  On  the  basis  of  this  "in- 
flux," are  to  be  explained  all  the  attributes  and 
powers  of  man  which  differentiate  him  from  the 
brute. 

On  the  hypothesis  of  this  spiritual  nature  [says 
Wallace],  are  we  able  to  understand  much  that  is 
mysterious  or  unintelligible  in  regard  to  him,  especially 
the  enormous  influence  of  ideas,  principles  and  beliefs 
over  his  whole  life  and  actions.  Thus  alone  we  can 
understand  the  constancy  of  the  martyr,  the  unselfish- 
ness of  the  philanthropist,  the  devotion  of  the  patriot, 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  artist,  and  the  resolute  and 
persevering  search  of  the  scientific  worker  after 
nature's  secrets.  Thus  we  may  perceive  that  the 
love  of  truth,  the  delight  in  beauty,  the  passion  for 
justice,  and  the  thrill  of  exultation  with  which  we  hear 
of  any  act  of  courageous  self-sacrifice,  are  the  workings 
within  us  of  a  higher  nature,  which  has  not  been 
developed  by  means  of  the  struggle  for  material 
existence.  ^ 

Just  how  or  when  the  influx  of  spiritual  life  enters 
into  the  unfolding  material  world,  Wallace  does 
not  explain.     He  simply  asserts  his  belief,  for  the 

'  See  Social  Environment  and  Moral  Progress,  page  102. 
^  See  Darwinism,  page  474. 

9 


I30 


Is  Death  the  End? 


reason  stated,  that  man,  in  contradistinction  to  all 
other  creatures,  is  a  spirit.  His  true  life  is  not  in 
this  world  at  all,  but  in  that  spiritual  realm,  whence 
flows  the  stream  of  his  conscious  life.  His  essential 
and  distinctive  being  is  not  earthly  but  heavenly, 
not  corruptible  but  incorruptible — and  therefore 
not  mortal  but  immortal!'  "The  whole  purpose, 
the  only  raison  d'etre,  of  the  world, "  says  this  great 
thinker  in  conclusion,  **is  the  development  of 
spiritual  beings,  capable  of  indefinite  life  and 
perfectibility."^ 

V 

Here,  now,  are  very  definite  answers  to  the 
contention  of  Haeckel  and  his  fellow-materialists 
that  the  placing  of  man  within  the  cosmic  process 
involves  the  negation  of  his  immortality.  Whether 
we  accept  Le  Conte's  theory  of  the  inward  flower- 
ing of  the  soul,  or  Wallace's  theory  of  the  influx 
of  the  spirit  from  without,  the  conception  of 
eternity  is  equally  consistent  with  the  doctrine 
of  man's  evolutionary  origin.  Man's  union  with 
nature,  in  other  words,  so  far  from  being  necessarily 
fatal  to  the  immortal  hope,  seems  only  to  empha- 
size the  significance  of  those  spiritual  faculties  of 
his  being,  in  which  the  immortal  hope  finds  its 
deepest  and  surest  foundations. 

Not  yet,  however,  have  we  touched  upon  that 

^  Very  similar  to  this  theory  of  Wallace  in  idea,  although  not 
in  the  form  of  its  statement,  is  the  doctrine  set  forth  by  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  in  his  Life  and  Matter. 

'  See  Darminism,  page  477. 


Immortality  and  Evolution       131 


phase  of  the  evolutionary  conception  which  con- 
stitutes the  real  contribution  of  the  new  science 
of  our  time  to  the  hope  of  immortality.  We  shall 
only  begin  to  understand  the  significance  of  this 
contribution  when  we  see  that  in  this,  as  in  every 
other  problem  of  man's  being,  the  issue  is  at  once 
shifted  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution  from  the  idea 
of  man  as  a  separate  individual  to  that  of  man  as  a 
part  of  the  entire  cosmic  order.  Not  man  in 
himself,  but  man  in  his  relation  to  the  all-embrac- 
ing world  of  life,  now  becomes  the  almost  exclusive 
point  of  view  from  w^hich  the  problem  of  eternity 
presents  itself.  At  the  heart  of  the  whole  matter 
is  the  universe,  and  not  merely  an  individual,  or 
group  of  individuals,  within  this  universe.  If 
immortality  is  ever  to  be  established  at  all,  it  must 
henceforth  be  upon  the  basis  not  of  the  peculiar 
powers  and  purposes  resident  within  the  human 
soul  as  a  separate  spiritual  entity,  but  of  the  whole 
significance  of  that  stupendous  evolutionary  pro- 
cess, of  which  the  development  of  the  soul  is  but 
a  single  incident.  Not  the  argument  from  man, 
but  the  argument  from  the  cosmos,  must  be  now 
the  deciding  factor! 

Looked  at  from  this  point  of  view,  man  takes  on 
at  once  an  altogether  remarkable  significance  as 
an  organic  being.  Here  in  this  universe,  evolution 
tells  us,  a  great  energy  or  spirit — self -existent, 
eternal,  infinite,  conscious,  intelligent,  purposeful — 
has  been  living  through  unnumbered  aeons  of  time, 
and  manifesting  itself  in  ever  higher  and  nobler 


132 


Is  Death  the  End? 


forms  of  created  life.  These  manifestations  have 
always  been  controlled  by  the  unvarying  law  of 
development — movement,  that  is,  from  the  lower 
to  the  higher,  from  the  simple  to  the  complex, 
*'from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous," 
to  quote  the  familiar  generalization  of  Herbert 
Spencer.  Manifesting  itself  first  as  a  mere  particle 
of  protoplasm,  in  unicellular  form,  it  has  grown  and 
expanded,  has  moved  step  by  step,  ever  upward 
and  onward,  from  the  inorganic  to  the  organic, 
from  the  vegetable  to  the  animal,  from  the  inverte- 
brate to  the  vertebrate,  from  the  fish  and  bird  to  the 
mammal  and  primate,  until  at  last,  after  millions 
of  centuries  of  time,  man  has  appeared — and  with 
him  the  process  has  apparently  stopped!  No 
higher  type  of  life  has  been  evolved,  nor  is  there 
any  indication  that  such  a  type  will  ever  appear. 
Progress  still  continues,  of  course,  but  it  is  no 
longer  physical,  but  mental  and  spiritual,  and,  as 
such,  is  within  man,  and  not  beyond  him.  Says 
John  Fiske: 

On  earth  there  will  never  be  a  higher  creature 
than  man  ...  for  man  is  still  the  goal  toward  which 
nature  tended  from  the  beginning.  ...  He  who  has 
mastered  the  Darwinian  theory  sees  that  in  the  deadly 
struggle  for  existence,  which  has  raged  through  count- 
less aeons  of  time,  the  whole  creation  has  been  groan- 
ing and  travailing  together  in  order  to  bring  forth  the 
last  consummate  specimen  of  God's  handiwork — the 
human  soul.^ 

*  See  The  Destiny  of  Man,  pages  31-32. 


Immortality  and  Evolution       133 

And  George  Eliot  puts  the  same  great  conclusion 
into  poetic  phrase,  when  she  says: 

I,  too,  rest  in  faith 
That  man's  perfection  is  the  crowning  flower, 
Toward  which  the  urgent  sap  in  life's  great  tree 
Is  pressing — seen  in  puny  blossom  now, 
But  in  the  world's  great  morrow  to  expand 
With  broadest  petals  and  with  deepest  glow. 

Now  if  this  exaltation  of  man  means  anything 
at  all,  it  means  that  a  steady  purpose  has  been 
rising  through  all  the  innumerable  changing  forms 
of  life,  and  that  man  is  the  fulfilment  of  this 
purpose.  It  means  that  man  is  the  end  of  all 
things,  the  goal  toward  which  nature  has  been 
tending  from  the  beginning,  the  "one  far-off  divine 
event,  toward  which  the  whole  creation"  has  ever 
moved.  It  means  that  all  which  has  preceded  him 
has  been  but  the  preparation  for  his  coming — that 
all  the  aeons  of  creative  time  have  been  fashioning 
the  globe  only  that  it  might  become  his  fitting 
habitation — that  all  plants  and  trees  have  flour- 
ished, all  fishes  swum  the  sea,  all  birds  coursed 
through  the  air,  all  animals  struggled  and  fought 
for  supremacy  in  life's  battle,  only  that  man  might 
be  the  perfect  creature,  physical,  mental,  spiritual, 
that  we  see  him  at  the  present  moment.  "So  far 
from  degrading  humanity, "  says  John  Fiske,  "the 
doctrine  of  evolution  enlarges  ten-fold  the  signifi- 
cance of  human  life  and  places  it  upon  an  even 
loftier  eminence"  than  even  priests  and  prophets 


134 


Is  Death  the  End? 


have  imagined.  ^  It  makes  man  ''the  heir  of  all  the 
ages,"  the  inheritor  of  all  the  strength  and  power 
and  beauty  of  the  entire  cosmic  process.  It  en- 
nobles him  as  the  quintessence  of  all  the  life  of  all 
the  world,  the  embodiment  of  everything  that  has 
gone  before,  the  fulfilment  and  revelation  of  the 
universe.  It  gives  him  a  kinship  with  all  things 
that  be,  and  thus  endows  him  w^ith  a  universal 
ancestry.  Lowell  boasts  that  he  can  count  the 
trees  "among  his  far  progenitors";  Shelley  ad- 
dresses the  skylark,  Bryant  the  waterfowl,  and 
Burns  the  field-mouse,  as  kindred  spirits;  Words- 
worth feels  in  nature 

...  a  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused. 
Therefore  ...  [he  continues],  am  I  still 
A  lover  of  the  meadows  and  the  woods 
And  mountains. 

And  now  we  find,  according  to  evolution,  that 
these  fantastic  visions  of  the  poets  are  sober  truth. 
The  whole  universe,  with  its  myriad  forms  of  life, 
has  joined  together  for  the  making  of  the  human 
soul — we  are  what  we  are,  in  thought  and  emo- 
tion, in  ideal  and  aspiration,  in  the  mind  that 
thinks  and  the  heart  that  feels  and  the  soul  that 
dreams  its  dreams  and  sees  its  visions,  because 
we  have  grown,  little  by  little,  step  by  step,  part  by 
part,  in  and  through  and  out  of  all  that  has  gone 

^  See  The  Destiny  oj  Man,  page  25, 


Immortality  and  Evolution       135 


before.  ''No  poet's  fancy,"  says  Mr.  J.  T.  Sunder- 
land in  The  Spark  in  the  Clod,  "ever  dreamed  such 
exaltation  for  man  as  science  in  our  day,  in  the 
light  of  evolution,  is  declaring  to  be  verified  fact. "  ^ 
From  the  first,  faint  glimmerings  of  life,  then, 
all  things  have  been  working  toward  this  one 
mighty  goal— the  production  of  man,  with  his 
art  and  poetry  and  music,  his  cities  and  kingdoms, 
his  civiHzations  and  religions.  And  now  arises 
instantly  the  fateful  question,  inevitable  in  the 
circumstances— what  does  all  this  mean?  Has 
all  this  been  done  for  nothing  ?  Is  all  this  ceaseless 
toil  of  the  ages  to  no  permanent  end  ?  Has  all  this 
"groaning  and  travailing"  of  the  whole  creation 
for  milHons  upon  millions  of  centuries  past  brought 
forth  nothing  but  this  transient  creature  man,  who 
lives  his  few  brief  days  upon  the  earth  and  then 
vanishes  forever,  like  Prosperous  "unsubstantial 
pageant,"  leaving  "not  a  rack  behind"?  The 
material  body  of  man  is,  as  we  know,  cast  aside 
and  returns  unto  the  dust  from  which  it  came. 
Astronomers  tell  us  that  that  dreadful  day  is  sure 
to  come  when  the  earth  shall  at  last  be  swallowed 
up  by  the  sun,  the  solar  system  be  shattered  to 
ruin,  the  heavens  themselves  vanish  "like  a  flam- 
ing scroll, "  and  all  the  material  universe  again  be 
merged  into  the  original  fire-mist  from  which  it 
first  evolved.  And  now,  in  the  face  of  this  stu- 
pendous cataclysm,  there  comes  the  question,  does 
this  utter  dissolution  of  gross  matter  involve  also 

^  See  The  Spark  in  the  Clod,  page  51. 


136 


Is  Death  the  End? 


the  dissolution  of  the  intellectual,  emotional,  and 
spiritual  nature  of  man?  Does  man's  soul,  in 
other  words — this  soul  which  is  the  supreme  goal 
toward  which  all  the  creative  energy  has  been  ever 
moving — perish  even  as  the  dust  of  the  earth? 
Has  all  this  work  of  untold  centuries,  of  millions 
upon  millions  of  years  of  time,  been  done  for 
nothing?  Has  chaos  been  reduced  to  order,  this 
order  fashioned  into  the  ''matchless  architecture 
of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  this  structure 
clothed  upon  with  life,  this  life  unfolded  into  the 
wonder  of  flower  and  tree,  the  beauty  of  fish  and 
bird,  the  miracle  of  man  with  his  erect  posture, 
his  speaking  tongue,  his  dreaming  mind,  his  loving 
heart,  his  aspiring  soul — that  this  last  great  miracle 
may  continue  only  through  life's  little  span  and 
then  cease  f orevermore  ? 

Is  it  all  ephemeral  [asks  John  Fiske,  as  he  surveys 
the  majestic  and  splendid  evolution  of  the  world  to  its 
supreme  achievement,  the  human  soul],  is  it  all  a 
bubble  that  bursts,  a  vision  that  fades?  Are  we  to 
regard  the  Creator's  work  as  like  that  of  a  child,  who 
builds  houses  out  of  blocks,  just  for  the  pleasure  of 
knocking  them  down?^ 

Such  a  conclusion  as  this,  in  the  light  of  human 
reason,  is  impossible.  It  is  mere  madness  to 
conceive  of  such  a  useless  ending  of  the  world — 
such  a  vain  and  empty  outcome  of  the  cosmic 
process.    Just  to  assert  that  the  universe  has  been 

*  See  The  Destiny  of  Man,  page  114. 


Immortality  and  Evolution       137 

labouring  for  a  million  years  to  no  permanent  end, 
is  to  confess  to  lunacy.    What,  for  instance,  would 
we  think  of  a  painter  who  should  spend  a  lifetime 
upon  some  great  canvas— toiling  through  weary 
days  and  sleepless  nights  upon  a  masterpiece  of 
creative  workmanship— only  to  display  it  for  a 
single  day  to  an  admiring  world  and  then  to  slash 
it  into  bits  ?    What  would  we  think  of  a  musician 
who  should  devote  his  years  to  the  composition  of 
a  great  opera,  that  sounded  the  deepest  depths  and 
smote  the  loftiest  heights  of  inspired  song— only 
to  produce  it  for  a  single  night  and  then  destroy  it 
forever  ?    What  would  we  think  of  an  inspired  poet, 
who  should  labour  from  youth  to  old  age  upon  some 
great  epic,  which  ran  the  whole  gamut  of  human 
passion  and  scaled  the  farthest  peaks  of  human 
idealism— only  to  read  his  noble  lines  to  the  listen- 
ing ears  of  men  for  one  little  day,  and  then  to  give 
his  manuscript  to  the  flames?    And  what,  in  the 
same  way,  would  we  think  of  God,  if  he  has  toiled 
all  these  aeons  and  at  the  last  has  produced  that 
''consummate   specimen   of   his   handiwork,    the 
human  soul, "  only  to  destroy  it  after  one  fleeting 
moment  of  existence?     Even  to  imagine  such  a 
thing  of  God  and  of  his  world  is  utterly  impossible. 
The  cosmic  process  through  all  these  ages  must 
have  been  working  to  some  permanent  end,  and 
must  have  been  seeking  some  abiding  achievement 
—-and  what  can  this  be  but  a  soul  that  shall  never 
die?      Evolution    leads   straight    to   immortality, 
or  it  leads  nowhere.    Evolution  leads  to  the  eternal 


138 


Is  Death  the  End? 


life  as  the  next  step  in  the  unfolding  process,  else 
there  is  no  such  unfolding  process.  The  human 
soul  is  immortal,  else  God  is  mad  and  evolution 
itself  a  baseless  dream. 

The  more  thoroughly  we  comprehend  the  process 
of  evolution  [says  John  Fiske,  as  the  final  result  of  his 
survey  of  the  whole  evolutionary  process],  the  more  we 
are  likely  to  feel  that  to  deny  the  everlasting  persist- 
ence of  the  spiritual  element  in  man  is  to  rob  the  whole 
process  of  its  meaning.  It  goes  far  toward  putting  us 
to  permanent  intellectual  cojifusion.  * 

To  the  evolutionist,  therefore,  the  denial  of  im- 
mortality is  "an  intolerable  thought." — There 
must,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be  a  future 
life  for  the  human  soul,  in  order  to  justify  the 
universal  order,  if  nothing  more.  For  if  evolution 
has  taught  us  anything  it  has  certainly  taught 
us  that  the  laws  which  govern  the  universe  are 
reasonable ;  that  the  evolutionary  process  is  guided 
by  a  rational  idea  and  controlled  by  a  moral  pur- 
pose; that  the  creative  energy,  through  all  the 
ages  past,  has  been  moving  toward  the  attainment 
of  something  definite  and  something  also  per- 
manent. And  that  *' something"  is  surely  nothing 
other  than  that  which  is  the  flower  and  fruit  of  all 
unfolding  life — the  aspiring  soul  of  man.  When 
the  earth  has  again  been  reduced  to  liquid  fire, 
when  the  heavens  have  again  ' '  rolled  together  like 
a  flaming  scroll"  and  all  the  labour  of  the  ages  has 

^  See  The  Destiny  of  Man,  pages  115,  116. 


i; 


Immortality  and  Evolution       139 

ended  in  the  fire-mist  of  chaos,  when  darkness  has 
again  enveloped  an  unformed  world  and  silence 
is  again  brooding  upon  the  empty  spaces  of  the 
deep— all  shall  not  be  lost,  all  this  age-long  process 
shall  not  have  been  in  vain.    There  shall  still  re- 
main the  soul  of  man  as  the  evidence  of  what 
God  has  done ;  there  shall  still  survive  the  wreck- 
age of  space  and  time  the  human  spirit,  as  the 
supreme  and  indestructible  product  of  God's  crea- 
tive handiwork.    If  the  universe  is  rational— and 
evolution  proves  to  us  that  it  is— the  soul  of  man 
must  be  immortal,  and  must  endure  even  when 
the  sun  is  cold,  the  stars  extinguished,  and  the 
earth  dissolved  to  nothing.     It  cannot  be  other- 
wise within  the  bounds  of  human  reason;  else  is 
the  world  a  delusion,  the  evolutionary  process  **a 
vanity  of  vanities,"  and  God  himself  an  unpro- 
ductive and  hence  unintelligent  workman.     It  is 
this  which  Dr.  Fiske  means  when  he  gives  us,  as 
his  credo,  "I  believe  in  the  immortahty  of  the  soul 
as  a  supreme  act  of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of 
God's  work!" ^ 


VI 


Such  is  the  answer  which  evolution,  when  thus 
interpreted,  gives  to  the  question  of  immortahty. 
Other  interpretations  of  this  process  will  come  and 
go,  but  it  is  unlikely  that  there  wall  ever  appear 
a  theory  of  the  unfolding  process  which  can  dis- 

^  See  The  Destiny  of  Man,  page  ii6. 


I 


140 


Is  Death  the  End? 


pense  with  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  its  final 
end  and  aim. 

At  this  very  moment,  indeed,  the  world  is  cap- 
tivated by  a  new  interpretation  of  the  story — 
that  of  Henri  Bergson — which  involves  elements 
very  different  from  those  which  I  have  just  de- 
scribed in  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the 
classic  theory  of  evolution.  In  place  of  a  conscious, 
thinking,  purposeful  God,  the  French  philosopher 
gives  us  a  blind,  unthinking,  purposeless  elan 
vitale.  In  place  of  a  great  process  of  development 
moving  deliberately,  under  sure  guidance,  to  cer- 
tain ends,  Bergson  presents  an  aimless,  halting, 
hit-and-miss  movement,  flowing  along,  like  a 
stream  of  water  through  a  bed  of  sand,  in  no  one 
direction  and  to  no  definite  goal.  In  place  of 
triumphant  co-operation  between  organism  and 
environment,  and  especially  between  matter  and 
spirit,  this  thinker  gives  us  a  picture  of  unre- 
mitting struggle  between  the  creative  life  and  the 
material  substance  with  which  it  deals.  His  con- 
ception— or  vision,  for  Bergson  is  more  of  a  seer 
than  a  systematic  thinker — is  that  of  a  great  life- 
current,  flowing  through  time  as  a  river  flows 
through  a  continent.  This  life-current  or  force  is 
the  fundamental  reality  in  nature,  the  material 
universe  being  the  reverse  side,  or  the  reverse 
process,  of  this  great  flow.  Matter,  says  Bergson, 
in  his  Creative  Evolution,  is  not  a  reality  at  all,  but 
a  flowing  back  of  the  life  that  has  lost,  or  is  losing, 
its  vitality.     Matter  is  a  secondary  process  de- 


\ 


ImmortaHty  and  Evolution       141 

rived  from  the  spiritual  process  of  life  by  inversion, 
or  retrogression,  or  degeneration.    ' '  Life,  "  he  says,' 
"is  an  effort  to  remount  the  incline  that  matter 
descends."    Again,  ''Life  is  a  succession   of  jets 
or  geysers,  gushing  out  from  an  immense  reservoir 
of  being,  of  which  each  one,  falling  back,  changes 
into  matter. "    Again  he  compares  the  flow  of  this 
life-current  "to  the  fiery  path  torn  by  the  last 
rocket  of  a  fireworks  display  through  the  black 
cinders  of  the  spent  rockets  that  are  falling  dead.  " ' 
A  still  better  comparison,  is  that  of  a  sloping  beach, 
as  the  tide  is  running  in.    A  great  wave  comes  rush- 
ing from  the  depths  of  the  ocean,  sweeps  up  the 
sandy  beach,  and  reaches  what  is  till  that  moment, 
perhaps,  the  highest  point  of  the  tidal  flow.     Then 
the  wave  loses  its  momentum,  or  vitality,  as  Berg- 
son would  say,  and  immediately  begins  to  run  back 
into  the  ocean  from  which  it  originally  came.    It 
has  only  receded  a  few  feet,  however,  when  another 
wave  comes  sweeping  in  from  the  sea.    Then  there 
appears  a  distinct  point  on  the  beach  where  the 
receding  water  of  the  first  wave  is  seen  to  be 
struggHng  and  fighting  with  the  advancing  water 
of  the  second  wave.     At  that  particular  point, 
there  is  a  perfect  maelstrom  of  contending  energy! 
At  last  the  oncoming  wave  overcomes  the  receding 
water,  engulfs  it  within  its  own  resistless  flow, 
sweeps  up  the  beach,  and  reaches  perhaps  a  higher 
point  than  that  attained  by  the  wave  which  went 

^See  citations  of  these  figurative  definitions   from   various 
sources  in  Dodson's  Bergson  and  the  Modern  Spirit,  page  44. 


142 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Immortality  and  Evolution 


143 


before.     Then  this  wave,  in  turn,  loses  its  mo- 
mentum and  recedes,  only  to  meet  another  in- 
coming wave — and  the  same  process  is  repeated. 
Such   is   Bergson's  interpretation   of  what   he 
calls   creative   evolution!     At  -the  heart   of   the 
universe  is  this  great  spiritual  energy  or  force,  and 
matter  is  the  stuff  upon  which  it  is  working,  or 
against  which  it  is  fighting,  for  the  achievement  of 
its  end.     Life  is  ever  pushing  and  struggling  on, 
and    ever    being    engulfed    by    receding    matter. 
Thus  is  the  story  of  the  evolutionary  process  a 
constant  succession  of  failures  or  defeats.     Each 
species,  or  genus,  of  the  organic  world  represents 
only  one  more  blind  alley  down  which  this  un- 
knowing, onward-moving  ela7i  vitale  has  proceeded, 
only  to  be  turned  back  upon  itself  and  driven  in 
retreat  to  the  main  line  of  advance  from  which  it 
had  wrongly  diverged.     Again  and  again  has  it 
moved  forward,  and  again  and  again  been  over- 
whelmed.    But  here  and  there  it  has  reached  a 
higher  mark,  or  recovered  itself  for  another  ad- 
vance before  it  has  been  driven  back  to  its  original 
starting  point,  and  thus  little  by  little  recorded  a 
permanent  advance.     Not  until  it  reached  man, 
however,  did  this  elan  vitale  really  come  into  its 
own  as  consciousness,  and  thus  permanently  make 
a  break  in  the  resisting  barriers  of  dead  matter. 
Here  at  last  is  the  life-force,  after  ages  of  struggle, 
defeat,  blunder,  and  failure,  apparently  triumph- 
ant.   Man  is  the  last  life- wave  which  races  up  the 
beach  and  marks  the  advent  of  the  flood-tide. 


i 


All  this  is  very  different  from  the  story  of  evolu- 
tion as  told  by  Spencer,  Fiske,  Le  Conte  and  Wallace, 
in  its  apparent  elimination  of  purpose,  precision,' 
end,  and  even  God!  Especially  is  it  different  in 
its  frank  denial  of  the  fundamental  assumption 
of ^  classic  evolutionism  that  man  is  the  predeter- 
mined goal  toward  which  the  aeons  of  the  past 
have  all  the  time  been  moving. 

Life  [says  Bergson],  transcends  finality,  as  it 
transcends  all  other  categories.  .  .  .  There  has  not, 
therefore,  properly  speaking,  been  any  project  or 
plan.  .  .  .  The  rest  of  nature  is  not  for  the  sake  of 
man.  ...  It  would  be  wrong  to  regard  humanity 
...  as  prefigured  in  the  evolutionary  movement.  It 
cannot  even  be  said  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  whole  of 
evolution,  for  evolution  has  been  accomplished  on 
several  divergent  lines,  and  while  the  human  species 
is  at  the  end  of  one  of  them,  other  lines  have  been 
followed  with  other  species  at  their  end.' 

But  even  here,  in  this  new  and  strange  interpreta- 
tion of  the  evolutionary  process,  immortaHty  seems 
to  be  as  necessary  a  factor  as  in  the  other.  Thus, 
in  that  final  survey  of  evolution  as  he  sees  and 
understands  it,  which  Bergson  gives  us  in  the 
closing  paragraph  of  the  third  chapter  of  his 
Creative  Evolution,  does  he  sweep  as  inevitably  to 
the  immortal  hope  as  his  last  and  crowning  word, 
as  a  filing  sweeps  to  a  magnet.  Purpose  of  some 
kind  seems  suddenly  to  appear,  the  goal  of  an 

'  See  Creative  Evolution,  pages  265,  266. 


144 


Is  Death  the  End? 


eternal  life  seems  ultimately,  even  if  blunderingly, 
to  be  attained,  God  and  the  soul  seem  somehow  to 
become  realities !  Who  that  has  read  this  passage 
can  ever  forget  it? 

When  a  strong  instinct  assures  the  probability  of 
personal  survival,  (we)  are  right  not  to  close  (our) 
ears  to  its  voice;  but  if  there  exist  "souls"  capable  of 
an  independent  life,  whence  do  they  come?  When, 
how,  and  why  do  they  enter  into  this  body  which  we 
see  arise,  quite  naturally,  from  a  mixed  cell  derived 
from  the  bodies  of  its  two  parents?  All  these  ques- 
tions will  remain  unanswered,  a  philosophy  of  intui- 
tion will  be  a  negation  of  science,  will  be  sooner  or 
later  swept  away  by  science,  if  it  does  not  resolve  to 
see  the  life  of  the  body  just  where  it  really  is,  on  the 
road  that  leads  to  the  life  of  the  spirit.  .  .  .  Life  as  a 
whole,  from  the  initial  impulsion  that  thrust  it  into 
the  world,  will  appear  as  a  wave  which  rises,  and  which 
is  opposed  by  the  descending  movement  of  matter. 
On  the  greater  part  of  its  surface,  at  different  heights, 
the  current  is  converted  by  matter  into  a  vortex.  At 
one  point  alone  it  passes  freely,  dragging  with  it  the 
obstacle  which  will  weigh  on  its  progress  but  will  not 
stop  it.  At  this  point  is  humanity;  it  is  our  privileged 
situation.  ...  On  flows  the  current,  running  through 
human  generations,  subdividing  itself  into  individuals. 
This  subdivision  was  vaguely  indicated  in  it,  but  could 
not  have  been  made  clear  without  matter.  Thus  souls 
are  continually  being  created.  .  .  .  They  are  nothing 
else  than  the  Httle  rills  into  which  the  great  river  of 
life  divides  itself,  flowing  through  the  body  of  hu- 
manity.   The  movement  of  the  stream  is  distinct  from 


ImmortaHty  and  Evolution       145 

the  river  bed,  although  it  must  adopt  its  winding 
course.    Consciousness  is  distinct  from  the  organism 
It  amniates,  although  it  must  undergo  its  vicissitudes. 
As  the  possible  actions  which  a  state  of  consciousness 
indicates  are  at  every  instant  beginning  to  be  carried 
out  in  the  nervous  centres,  the  brain  underiines  at 
every  instant  the  motor  indications  of  the  state  of 
consciousness;  but  the  interdependency  of  consdous- 
ness  and  brain  is  limited  to  this;  the  destiny  of  con- 
sciousness IS  not  bound  up  on  that  account  with  the 
destiny  of  cerebral  matter.    Finally,  consciousness  is 
essentially  free;  it  is  freedom  itself;  but  it  cannot  pass 
through  matter  without  settling  on  it,  without  adapt- 
ing itsef  to  It;  this  adaptation  is  what  we  call  intel- 
lectuality; and  the  intellect,  turning  itself  back  toward 
active,  that  is  to  say  free,  consciousness,  naturally 
makes  it  enter  into  the  conceptual  forms  into  which  it 
IS  accustomed  to  see  matter  fit.     It  will  therefore 
always  perceive  freedom  in  the  form  of  necessity;   it 
will  always  neglect  the  part  of  novelty  or  of  creation 
inherent  in  the  free  act;  it  will  always  substitute  for 
action  Itself  an   imitation  artificial,  approximative, 
obtained  by  compounding  the  old  with  the  old  and  the 
same  with  the  same.    Thus,  to  the  eyes  of  a  philosophy 
that  attempts  to  reabsorb  intellect  in  intuition,  many 
difficulties  vanish  or  become  light.    But  such  a  doc- 
tnne  does  not  only  facilitate  speculation;  it  gives 
us  also  more  power  to  act  and  to  live.    For,  with  it,  we 
feel  ourselves  no  longer  isolated  in  humanity,  hu- 
manity no  longer  seems  isolated  in  the  nature  which  it 
dominates.    As  the  smallest  grain  of  dust  is  bound  up 
with  our  entire  solar  system,  drawn  along  with  it  in 
that  undivided  movement  of  descent  which  is  ma- 
teriality  itself,   so  all   organized   beings,   from   the 

TO 


i 


146 


Is  Death  the  End? 


humblest  to  the  highest,  from  the  first  origins  of  life 
to  the  time  in  which  we  are,  and  in  all  places  as  in  all 
times,  do  but  evidence  a  single  impulsion,  the  inverse 
of  the  movement  of  matter,  and  in  itself  indivisible. 
All  the  living  hold  together,  and  all  yield  to  the  same 
tremendous  push.  The  animal  takes  its  stand  on  the 
plant,  man  bestrides  animality,  and  the  whole  of 
humanity,  in  space  and  in  time,  is  one  immense  army 
galloping  beside  and  before  and  behind  each  of  us  in 
an  overwhelming  charge  able  to  beat  down  every 
resistance  and  clear  the  most  formidable  obstacles, 
perhaps  even  death, ^ 

VII 

Thus  from  the  standpoint  of  evolution,  which 
presents  man  not  as  an  individual  but  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  cosmic  process,  does  immortality 
appear  not  only  probable,  but  inevitable!  Proba- 
bility here  passes  over  into  something  very  like 
certainty.  If  we  reject  this  belief  in  a  future  life, 
as  Professor  Haeckel  rejects  it,  for  instance,  then 
must  we  perforce  call  the  universe  a  riddle,  even 
as  he  is  obliged  to  do  in  his  famous  book  of  that 
title.  But  if  we  accept  this  belief,  as  Fiske  and 
Bergson  accept  it,  for  instance,  then  all  things 
become  plain.  Evolution,  matched  and  completed 
by  the  immortal  life,  tells  us  of  a  universe  which 
lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being  in  a  creative 
spirit ;  a  universe  which  is  guided  by  divine  reason 
and  controlled  by  divine  purpose;  a  universe  which 
is  evolving  to  the  ''consummate  achievement"  of 

*  See  Creative  Evolution^  pages  269-71. 


Immortality  and  Evolution 


147 


an  immortal  soul ;  a  universe  which  is  moving  on- 
ward to  the  farthest  of  all  goals,  that  of  a  spiritual 
life  which  shall   endure  when  systems   fail  and 
planets  crash  to  ruin.    In  the  light  of  all  that  has 
been  and  all  that  is,  in  the  light  of  all  that  has  been 
done  for  him  and  in  him,  it  is  certain  that  man 
must  be  able  to  survive  the  wTeck  of  time,  and  live 
on  forever  as  the  permanent  triumph  of  the  crea- 
tive spirit,  the  everiasting  justification  of  *' God's 
way   of   doing   things."     The  whole   history   of 
evolution  is  but  the  story  of  man's  birth  and 
growth,  and  in  the  wonder  of  this  miracle  is  the 
pledge  of  eternal  life. 


\ 


CHAPTER  V 

IMMORTALITY  AND   SCIENTIFIC   RESEARCH 

"  But  does  the  evidence  afford  us  proof  of  immor- 
tality? Obviously  it  cannot;  nor  can  any  investiga- 
tions yield  scientific  proof  of  that  larger,  higher,  and 
enduring  life  which  we  desire  and  mean  by  immortality. 
.  .  .  Our  own  limitations,  in  fact,  make  it  impossible 
for  the  evidence  to  convey  the  assurance  that  we  are 
communicating  with  what  is  best  and  noblest  in  those 
who  have  passed  into  the  unseen.  In  fact,  psychical 
research,  though  it  may  strengthen  its  foundations, 
cannot  take  away  the  place  of  religion."— W.  F. 
Barrett,  F.  R.  S.,  in  Psychical  Research,  page  245. 

THE  arguments  discussed  in  the  last  two  chap- 
ters would  seem  to  indicate  that  a  strong 
case  might  be  made  out  for  our  conception  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  Especially  is  it  gratify- 
ing to  discover  that  the  revolutionary'^  doctrine 
of  evolution,  which  so  dominates  the  thought  of  our 
time,  not  only  does  not  overthrow  or  even  weaken 
our  argument  for  the  immortal  hope,  but  actually 
adds  one  more  intimation  of  the  eternal  destiny 
of  man  to  the  many  which  have  been  previously 
discovered.  Whether  we  view  man  in  his  individ- 
ual capacity  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  being,  or 
look  at  him  from  the  standpoint  of  the  universe 

148 


r 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    149 

as  the  last  step  in  the  triumphant  progress  of 
unfolding  life,  we  see  in  either  case  the  promise  of 
his  continued  existence  beyond  the  limits  of  this 
present  world.  Both  in  himself  and  in  his  relation 
to  the  cosmic  process,  he  is  his  own  best  evidence 
of  immortality. 


In  spite,  however,  of  the  undoubted  strength  of 
these  considerations,  and  in  spite  of  the  satisfaction 
which  they  have  brought  to  inquiring  minds  and 
longing  hearts  in  days  gone  by,  it  still  must  be 
admitted  as  an   indubitable  fact  that  they  have 
practically  ceased  to  bring  conviction  in  our  time. 
Men  today  are  looking  for  something  more  than 
anything  that  we  have  yet  presented.     They  are 
no  longer  content  with  intimations,  or  probabili- 
ties, or  even  reasonable  certainties.     The  modem 
student  wants  proof;  and  since  he  is  getting  proof 
today  of  practically  everything  else  which  enters 
mto  the  field   of  knowledge  or  speculation,   he 
sees  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  proof  also 
of  immortality  as  the  condition  of  his  acceptance 
of  this  doctrine.     I  am  through  once  for  all  with 
accepting  things  on  faith,  is  his  declaration ;  give 
me  proof,  on  the  basis  of  facts  observed  and  veri- 
fied, or  else  let  me  be  excused ! 

The  explanation  of  this  attitude  of  mind  is  to  be 
found  in  the  distinctive  character  of  the  age  in 
which  we  are  living.     It  has  long  since  become  a 


150 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


commonplace  to  call  this  age  an  age  of  science, 
by  which  is  meant  of  course  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  an  age  of  ordered  knowledge.     Our  period 
is  one  of  careful  investigation,  accurate  demon- 
stration, and  exact  truth.     The  astronomer  has 
turned   his   telescope   toward   the    immeasurable 
spaces   of   the   heavens,    and    there,    by   patient 
watching  through  the  long  hours  of  the  iaight,  has 
discovered  and  formulated  the  laws  of  planetary 
motion,  and  has  proved  the  reality  of  these  laws 
by  a  reasoning  so  exact  that  he  can  prophesy  a 
certain  conjunction  of  the  stars  a  century  hence 
to  the  very  minute.     The  chemist  has  turned  his 
microscope  toward  the  earth  and  by  careful  an- 
alysis of  the  composition  of  matter,  has  revealed 
and  formulated  the  laws  of  chemical  affinity,  and 
proved  the  reality  of  these  laws  by  a  demonstra- 
tion so  exact  that  he  can  foretell  the  immediate 
consequence  of  any  given  combination  of  particu- 
lar elements.     The  physicist,  with  his  weights  and 
balances,  mirrors  and  candles,  tubes  and  wires, 
has  investigated  the  problems  of  physical  energy 
as  manifested  in  the  various  forms  of  heat,  light, 
electricity,  and  magnetism,  and  by  experiments 
of  the  greatest  delicacy  has  proved  the  reality  of 
his  laws  of  motion,  refracted  light,  and  specific 
gravity. 

In  short,  we  are  living  in  an  age  so  dominated 
by  the  methods  and  the  ideals  of  physical  science, 
that  we  have  come  to  identify  knowledge  with 
physical  demonstration,  and  to  define  reality  as 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research 


151 


that  which  can  be  seen  and  felt  and  heard,  analysed 
and   tested  and  proved.     We  refuse   to  accept 
anything  as  real  which  cannot  be  subjected  to 
actual  physical  experiment.     We  decline  to  believe 
anything   as   true   which   cannot   be   proved   by 
mathematics,  as  planetary  motion  can  be  proved— 
by  analysis  and  experiment,  as  chemical  affinities 
can  be  proved-by  exact  measurements  of  weights 
degrees  of  heat,  or  rates  of  motion,  as  the  laws  of 
physical  energy  can  be  proved.     We  ask  for  proof 
and  if  this  proof  is  not  forthcoming,  we  refuse  to 
be  convmced !    The  attitude  of  our  generation  is 
that  which  finds  its  noblest  embodiment  in  the 
person  of  the  agnostic,  Thomas  Huxley,  who   in 
his  Essay  on  Agnosticism  and  Christianity,  laid  it 
down  as  the  working  principle  of  his  life— "It  is 
wrong  for  a  man  to  say  that  he  is  certain  of  the 
objective  truth  of  any  proposition,  unless  he  can 
produce  the  proof  which  logically  justifies  that 
certainty.    ■ 

II 

Now  it  is  this  insistent  demand  for  proof  so 
characteristic  of  our  time,  which  has  entered 
mto  the  field  of  speculation  on  the  immortal  life 
and  laid  down  therein  the  challenge  for  scientific 
demonstration  as  the  condition  of  belief  The 
first  result  of  this  challenge,  of  course,  was  the 
widespread  development  of  the  agnostic  attitude, 

■  See  Science  and  Christian  Tradition,  page  310. 


i 


152 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


of  which  we  have  just  spoken.  But  very  soon 
men  began  to  ask  themselves  why  the  problem 
of  immortahty  should  not  be  studied  in  the  same 
way  that  any  other  problem  is  studied,  and  why 
the  result  of  such  study  should  not  be  just  the 
kind  of  demonstration  that  was  demanded.  And 
forthwith  there  was  launched  a  movement  for  the 
scientific  investigation  of  this  and  kindred  pro- 
blems in  the  realm  of  spiritual  phenomena,  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  most  remarkable  events  that 
the  history  of  human  thought  has  known. 

This  movement  had  its  beginning  in  the  year 
1882,  with  the  organization  in  England  of  the  well- 
known  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  Work 
of  a  strictly  scientific  kind  had  been  attempted  in 
this  field  as  early  as  187 1 ,  by  the  eminent  physicist, 
Sir  William  Crookes.  But  the  real  organization  of 
this  undertaking  dates  from  the  foundation  of 
what  is  famiHarly  known  today  as  the  S.  P.  R. 
Throughout  the  more  than  thirty  years  of  its 
existence,  this  Society  has  had  associated  with 
its  membership  and  work  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  and  influential  men  of  our  time. 
The  list  of  its  presidents  constitutes  a  roll  of 
honour  which  could  with  difficulty  be  dupHcated 
elsewhere.  Beginning  with  Professor  Henry  Sidg- 
wick,  one  of  the  great  ethical  philosophers  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  there  follow  in  order  Professor 
Balfour  Stewart,  Right  Hon.  A.  J.  Balfour,  Pro- 
fessor William  James,  Sir  William  Crookes,  Mr. 
F.   W.   H.    Myers,   Sir  Oliver  Lodge,   Professor 


\ 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    153 

W.  F.  Barrett,  Professor  C.  Richet,  Right  Hon. 
Gerald  N.  Balfour,  Mrs.  Henry  Sidgwick,  Mr. 
H.  H.  Smith,  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  Right  Rev. 
Bishop  Boyd  Carpenter,  and  Professor  Henri 
Bergson.  On  the  council  in  recent  years  have 
been  such  men  as  Lord  Rayleigh,  Mr.  G.  Lowes 
Dickinson,  Professor  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  and  Pro- 
fessor Gilbert  Murray. 

A  branch  of  this  Society  was  established  in  the 
United  States  in  1885.  No  such  galaxy  of  names 
has  been  clustered  about  the  organization  in  this 
country  as  in  Great  Britain,  but  not  a  few  men  of 
distinction  have  been  associated  with  its  work 
in  one  way  or  another.  Among  these,  the  late 
Professor  William  James,  of  Harvard  University, 
stands  pre-eminent.  Others  who  may  be  named 
are  the  late  Professor  S.  P.  Langley,  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institute  in  Washington,  Professor  Josiah 
Royce,  of  Harvard,  and  his  two  distinguished 
associates.  Professors  Bowditch  and  Pickering, 
Professor  James  H.  Hyslop,  late  of  Columbia 
University,  and  Dr.  Minot  J.  Savage,  the  distin- 
guished Unitarian  clergyman. 

The  work  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
both  in  England  and  in  America,  has  been  of  the 
most  extensive  character,  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  study  of  the  problem  of  immortality.  True 
to  its  name,  and  in  accordance  with  its  declared 
intention  from  the  first,  it  has  given  itself  unre- 
servedly to  the  investigation  of  all  psychical 
phenomena  which  have  seemed  to  be  of  a  super- 


154 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


natural,   or  rather   supernormal,   character,   and 
thus  outside  the  recognized  limits  of  orthodox 
psycholog>^     Thought  reading  and  thought  trans- 
ference, mesmerism,  hypnotism  and  other  varie- 
ties of  suggestion,  experimental  and  spontaneous 
telepathy,  previsions    and   visual    hallucinations, 
dreams  and  crystal- visions,  supernormal  percep- 
tion or  "seeing  without  eyes,  "  as  it  has  been  called 
— all  these   extraordinary  phenomena  have  been 
observed  and  studied  with  the  utmost  seriousness, 
and    volumes    of    valuable    data,    supported    by 
unimpeachable  testimony,  collected  and  pubhshed. 
Even  though  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
had  never  gone  beyond  this  vast  domain  of  strange 
occurrence,  the  world's  debt  to  its  years  of  patient 
and  exhaustive  investigation  would  be  well-nigh 
incalculable.     The  results  of  its  labours  may  seem 
unsatisfactory  and  some  of  its  conclusions  ques- 
tionable, but  it  has  nevertheless  done  the  invalu- 
able service  of  carrying  the  clear  white  light  of 
science  into  a  realm  long  abandoned  to  the  murky 
darkness  of  superstition,  and  thus  advancing  to 
just  that  extent  at  least  the  borders  of  knowledge. 
It  is  with  the  work  of  the  Society  in  the  field 
of  "spirituaHsm"  as  it  has  been  termed,  however, 
that  we  are  more  particularly  concerned,  for  it  is 
here  that  the  opportunity  has  been  found  and  the 
endeavour  made  to  demonstrate  the  reality  of  the 
immortal  life.     This  was  one  of  the  prime  objects 
for  which  the  Society  was  organized — to  conduct 
**an  inquiry,"  in  the  words  of  the  official  state- 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    155 

ment,  ''into  various  alleged  phenomena  apparently 
inexplicable  by  known  laws  of  nature,  and  com- 
monly referred  by  Spiritualists  to  the  agency  of 
extra-terrene  intelligences,  and  by  others  to  some 
unknown  physical  force."  And  this  object  has 
never  been  lost  sight  of.  Indeed,  it  is  just  here, 
in  the  pursuit  of  this  inquiry,  that  the  Society  has 
attracted  the  largest  degree  of  popular  attention, 
and  done  its  most  interesting,  if  not  its  most 
important,  work.  What  has  actually  been  accom- 
plished is  still  very  much  of  a  moot  question.  But 
that  the  possibility  of  demonstrating  the  truth 
of  immortality  is  dependent  upon  the  successful 
outcome  of  this  deliberate  scientific  inquiry  into 
the  Unseen  is  practically  beyond  dispute. 


Ill 


In  order  to  see  just  what  the  activities  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  in  this  shadowy 
field  really  involve,  and  what  relation  they  bear 
to  the  general  question  of  continued  existence 
after  death,  it  will  be  necessary  at  this  point  to 
consider  what  must  be  done  in  order  to  demon  • 
strate  the  reality  of  the  immortal  life  upon  an 
experiential  basis.  So  far  as  I  can  understand 
the  factors  in  the  situation,  the  proof  which  we 
desire  can  only  be  had  in  one  of  two  ways. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  ourselves  break 
through  the  veil  which  hides  the  future  from  the 
present,  and  thus  personally  penetrate  the  myste- 


156 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


ries  of  the  Unseen.     We  must,  after  the  example 
of  Omar  Khayyam,  send  our  souls 


.    .    .   into  the  invisible 

Some  message  of  that  after  life  to  spell. 

So  far  as  we  are  concerned  on  this  side  of  the  grave, 
we  are  faced  by  the  same  problem  by  which 
Columbus  was  faced  when  he  was  asked  for 
evidence  of  his  faith  that  the  world  was  round.  He 
could  point  to  all  sorts  of  intimations  and  proba- 
biHties  for  the  reason  that  was  in  him,  but  at 
bottom  there  was  only  one  sure  way  of  proving 
the  truth  of  his  belief — and  that  was  to  set  sail 
out  into  the  west,  and  by  journeying  straight  on 
towards  the  setting  sun,  come  at  last  to  the  ports 
of  India.  To  reach  the  east  by  sailing  west  would 
prove  his  point!  And  so  with  us  today  in  our 
faith  in  immortality.  If  we  want  to  estabHsh 
the  actual  truth  of  this  conception,  we  must  our- 
selves go  into  that  far  country  of  the  future,  and 
thus  prove  our  faith  by  our  works! 

The  impossibility  of  this  method  of  reaching  our 
point  is,  of  course,  manifest  upon  the  face  of  things. 
Ulysses,  to  be  sure,  is  said  to  have  descended  into 
the  nether  world  and  there  talked  with  the  mighty 
Agamemnon  and  the  great  Achilles ;  but  this  ex- 
ploit has  ever  been  interpreted  as  one  of  the 
legends  of  an  age  fruitful  of  myth  and  romance. 
Dante  wrote  so  vividly  of  his  journey  down  the 
circles  of  Inferno,  up  the  ridges  of  Purgatorio,  to 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    157 

the   resplendent   heights   of   Paradiso,    that    the 
superstitious  townsmen  of  Italy,  so  we  are  told, 
would  point  to  his  melancholy  figure  as  that  of  the 
man  who  had  talked  with  the  damned  in  hell  and 
with  the  angels  in  heaven ;  but  no  one  in  our  age 
has  ever  regarded  his  exploit  as  other  than  a  con- 
summate achievement  of  the  constructive  imagin- 
ation and  a  soaring  flight  of  ecstatic  love.     More 
recent  is  the  claim  of  Swedenborg  to  have  been 
admitted  into  the  spirit  world,  and  very  explicit 
is  the  seer's  description,  in  his  Heaven  and  Hell, 
of  what  he  saw  and  heard ;  but  most  people  today 
would    agree    with    Emerson's    assertion,    in    his 
Essay  on  Swedenborg,  that  the  extraordinary  expe- 
riences of  this  extraordinary  man  must  be  described 
as  an  "example  of  a  deranged  balance."^     It  is 
surely  not  in  this  direction  that  we  can  hope  to 
obtain  our  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  unseen  world. 
If  this  world  exists  at  all,  it  must  be  spiritual  and 
not  material  in  character;  and  the  condition  of 
entrance  therein  must  necessarily  be  that  doffing 
of  the  flesh  and  that  surrender  of  the  faculties  of 
sense  which  only  death  can  accomplish  for  us. 
Theoretically  this  method  of  demonstration  con- 
stitutes a  part  of  our  analysis  of  possibiHties,  but 
practically  it  offers  no  solution  of  our  problem 
whatsoever. 

But  there  is  a  second  way  in  which  proof  of  the 
future  life  may  possibly  be  had!  I  refer  to  the 
fact  that,  in  lieu  of  visiting  the  realms  of  immor- 

'  See  Representative  Men,  page  99. 


158 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


tality  and  seeing  for  ourselves,  we  may  receive 
visitations  or  communications  from  those  who  have 
entered  into  the  Unseen,  and  thus  obtain  definite 
evidence  of  their  continued  existence  after  death. 
That  is,  while  we  may  not  be  able  to  project  our- 
selves forward,  the  dead,  as  we  term  them,  may 
very  well  be  able  to  send  themselves  back;  and 
if  we  can  note  and  verify  such  return,  either  in 
person  or  by  message,  we  shall  be  in  possession  of 
a  conclusive  proof  of  our  hypothesis.     The  problem 
here  is  very  much  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  the 
suggestion  that  Mars  is  inhabited.     It  is  prac- 
tically  certain   that  we   shall  never  be  able   to 
journey  to  that  planet  and  discover  if  there  are 
living  creatures  upon  its  surface.     It  also  seems 
probable,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  Man  from 
Mars,  who  has  long  played  so  conspicuous  a  part 
in  certain  novels  and  dramas,  will  always  remain  a 
supposititious  figure.     It  does  not  seem  quite  so 
impossible  to  imagine,  however,  that,  if  there  are 
inhabitants  on  this  distant  sphere,  we  may  some 
day  receive  signs  or  communications  which  would 
give  us  evidence  of  their  presence.     Certainly,  this 
is  what  we  must  have  if  this  conception  is  ever  to 
pass  out  of  the  realm  of  reasonable  conjecture  into 
the  realm  of  accurate  knowledge,  for  suggestive  as 
is  Professor  Percival  Lowell's  canal  theory,  it  can 
by  no  means  be  regarded  as  a  final  demonstration 
of  the  truth  of  his  not  improbable  thesis.     And  if 
these  signs  or  communications  ever  did  come,  and 
could  be  proved  to  have  their  origin  in  this  par- 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research 


159 


ticular  planet,  of  course  no  further  denials  would 
be  possible.  With  the  receipt  and  verification 
of  messages,  the  case  would  be  closed.  And  so 
with  the  case  of  those  who  have  "shuffled  off  this 
mortal  coil!"  If  we  could  only  see  them,  or  hear 
trom  them,  or  receive  from  them  actual  evidence 
of  their  existence,  how  simple  the  problem  would 
be!  Indeed  the  problem  as  a  problem  would  dis- 
appear, for  the  reality  of  the  unseen  world  would 
be  absolutely  demonstrated  forthwith ! 

Now  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  this  kind  of 
proof  seems  as  much  open  to  our  inquiry  as  the 
other  kind  of  proof  is  closed.     From  the  beginning 
of  human  history,  man  has  felt  himself  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  the  living  dead,  and  has  believed  him- 
self to  be  the  recipient  of  communications  from 
their    encompassing    spirits.     Indeed,   if   he  has 
cherished  in  all  ages  an  almost  universal  belief  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  it  is  largely  because 
he  has  apparently  undergone  the  almost  univer- 
sal experience  of    having    the   departed    do  this 
very  thing  of  returning  into  his  Hfe,  and  giving 
to  him  impressive   and   at    times   startling   evi- 
dence of  their  presence.     Ghosts  and  apparitions 
spectral  groves  and  haunted  houses,  inexpHcable 
rappings  and  movements  of  physical  objects,  auto- 
matic writings,  spoken  communications  dispatched 
through  mediums  and  clairvoyants— these  are  only 
a  few  of  the  more  important  ways  in  which  the  so- 
called  dead  have  apparently  revealed  the  fact  of 
their  continued  existence  in  another  world.     In- 


i6o 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


stances  of  this  sort  of  thing  are  simply  innumer- 
able, and  the  forms  under  which  they  appear  are 
infinitely  varied  in  character.  Assuredly  if  mere 
quantitative  accumulation  of  testimony  and  ap- 
parent uniformity  of  experience  count  for  anything, 
we  would  seem  to  have  here  all  the  material  that 
we  need  for  our  demonstration  of  the  immortal 
life.  The  case  would  seem  to  be  proved  by  a  mere 
recital  of  the  record.  And  yet  never  has  the  proof 
been  accepted,  or  the  record  tested. 

This  literature  is  enormous  [says  Professor  James,  in 
his  essay  on  What  Psychical  Research  Has  Accom- 
pJi'sfudl  ^t  >t  '^  jwTictically  worthless  for  ovKlcntia] 
purposes.  Facts  cmm^^h  arc  cited.  indecHl;  but  the 
records  of  them  arc  .^  fallible  and  i«i]x.Tfcct  that  at 
most  tlicy  l<!u<i  to  tlie  opinion  that  it  may  lie  well  to 
keep  a  window  open  upon  that  quiirtcr  in  onc*.s  mind.  • 

Now  it  iij  just  here  that  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  has  entered  into  the  field  and  done  work 
of  the  moc^t  vital  character.  From  the  beginning  it 
has  taken  the  position  that  tliese  supposed  super- 
natural experiences  were  facts  of  life  like  any 
other  facts,  and  worthy  therefore  of  careful  study 
and  investigation.  Too  long,  and  without  rea- 
son, have  they  been  abandoned  to  the  gaping  be- 
wilderment of  the  credulous  multitudes.  What  h 
needed  is  that  the  same  spirit  of  exact  and  unim- 
passioned  inquiry  should  be  brooight  to  bear  on 
these  ob$cure  questions  which  has  enabled  science 

^  Sec  Th^WiUU  S4!i€9€,  iWKc  :^>y 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    161 

to  solve  so  many  problems  once  no  less  obscure 
nor   less   contemptuously   regarded.     If   this   be 
done,  it  will  undouhtcdly  be  found,  as  one  state- 
ment puts  it,   that   "amidst  much   illusion  and 
deception  there  exist.s  an  important  body  of  facts, 
hitherto  unrccogni/.ed  l)y  science,  which,  if  incon- 
testably  established,  would  be  of  supreme  imi)ort- 
ance  and  interest.'*     That  these  phenomena  all 
constitute  bona  fide  communications  from  the  world 
beyond  the  «rave  is  exceedingly  doubtful.     But 
if  there  is  even  a  small  [)roport.ion  which  can  be  so 
explained,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  we 
should  kno\%-  this.     For  it  is  only  in  sudi  ixxssibic 
happenings  as  these  that  any  scientific  demonstra- 
tion of  tl>e  reality  of  the  immortal  life  can  ever  be 
secured.    Right  here,  if  anywhere,  in  this  shadowy 
realm  of  inexi)licable  occurrences— few  of  them 
seriou.*^,  mocst  of  them  fantastic    is  where  wc  must 
find  the  proof  of  our  faith  in  things  eternal,  if  sudi 
proof  is  ever  to  be  had.    Therefore  is  it  not  for  us 
to  ignore  or  smile  at  thetsc  phenomena,  but  apply 
to  their  investigation  the  best  scientific  nicthods 
tlul  wc  have.    It  may  be  that  we  shall  find 
nothing  but  a  ma.<iii  of  disordered  sujx^rstition.  but 
it  may  also  be  tliat  wc  shall  succeeil  at  last  in 
bridging  the  chasm  between  this  world  and  the 
next! 


IV 


It  was  in  this  high  spirit  of  serious  scientific 
inUTcst  that  the  Sodcty  for  Psychical  Research 


ji 


(»  g^'^    4j.^  a^ 


sK^^'a^r**--^  I'^'^^^sf^'^L^^^^ 


162 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


entered  upon  its  investigations  of  every  pheno- 
menon which  could  even  be  remotely  interpreted 
as  possibly  constituting  a  communication  from  the 
life  beyond  the  grave.  Very  speedily  it  was  dis- 
covered that  this  vast  array  of  extraordinary 
occurrences  might  be  divided,  for  purposes  of 
study  and  interpretation,  into  two  classes. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  what  Maeterlinck 
terms,  in  his  exceedingly  interesting  survey  of  the 
subject  in  Our  Eternity,  "  real,  objective,  and  spon- 
taneous apparitions,  or  direct  manifestations."^ 
These  are  what  we  would  call,  in  ordinary  par- 
lance, plain,  matter-of-fact  "ghosts!"  A  typical 
example  may  be  taken,  by  way  of  illustration,  from 
the  seventh  volume  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society. 

On  October  24, 1889,  Edmund  Dunn,  brother  of  Mrs. 
Agnes  Paquet,  was  serving  as  fireman  on  the  tug  Wolf^ 
...  in  Chicago  Harbour.  At  about  3  o'clock  A.  m. 
the  tug  fastened  to  a  vessel  ...  to  tow  her  up  the 
river.  While  adjusting  the  tow-line,  Mr.  Dunn  fell 
or  was  thrown  overboard  by  the  tow-line, and  drowned. 

Mrs.  Paquet 's  Statement: 

I  arose  about  the  usual  hour  on  the  morning  of  the 
accident.  ...  I  awoke  feeling  gloomy  and  depressed, 
which  feeling  I  could  not  shake  off.  After  breakfast 
my  husband  went  to  his  work,  and  .  .  .  the  children 
were  .  .  .  sent  to  school,  leaving  me  alone  in  the 
house.     Soon  after  this  I  decided  to  .  .   .  drink  some 

^  See  Our  Eternity ,  page  83. 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    163 

tea,  hoping  it  would  relieve  me  of  the  gloomy  feelings 
afore-mentioned.     I  went  into  the  pantry,  took  down 
the  tea-canister,  and  as  I  turned  around  my  brother 
Edmund   .    .    .   stood  before  me  and  only  a  few  feet 
away.     The  apparition  stood  with  back  towards  me 
.    .    .   and  was  in  the  act  of  falling  forward— away 
from   me— seemingly   impelled   by  ...   a   loop   of 
rope  drawing  against  his  legs.     The  vision  lasted  but 
a  moment,  disappearing  over  a  low  railing,  ...  but 
was  very  distinct.     I  dropped  the  tea,  clasped  my 
hands  to  my  face  and  exclaimed,  "My  God!  Ed.  is 
drowned!" 

At  about  10  :30  a.  m.  my  husband  received  a  tele- 
gram   from   Chicago,   announcing    the   drowning   of 
my  brother.    .    .    .     When  he  arrived  home  I 
gave  him  a  minute  description  of  what  I  had  seen. 
I  stated  that  my  brother,  as  I  saw  him,  was  bareheaded, 
had  on  a  heavy  blue  sailor's  shirt,  no  coat,  and  that 
he  went  over  the  rail  or  bulwark.     I  noticed  that  his 
pants  legs  were  rolled  up  enough  to  show  the  white 
lining  inside.     I  also  described  the  appearance  of  the 
boat  at  the  point  where  my  brother  went  overboard. 
I  am  not  nervous,  and  neither  before  nor  since  have 
I  had  any  experience  in  the  least  degree  similar  to 
that  above  related.  ^ 

It  may  be  added  that  Mr.  Paquet  went  at  once 
to  Chicago  and  found  that  the  particulars  of  the 
brother's  death  were  exactly  as  his  wife  had  seen 
them.  A  study  of  the  time  revealed  the  fact, 
according  to  Mr.  Sidgwick's  account,  that  Mrs! 
Paquet 's  ''impression  was  not  contemporaneous 

*  Quoted  in  Barrett's  Psychical  Research,  pages  124-27. 


i 


164 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


with  the  event  to  which  it  related,  but  occurred 
some  six  hours  afterwards." 

A  famous  case  of  just  this  kind  was  the  appear- 
ance of  the  figure  of  Admiral  Tryon,  at  a  social 
function  in  London,  at  the  moment  when  he  was 
sinking  with  his  flagship,  H.  M.  S.  Victoria,  in  the 
Mediterranean.  According  to  reports  widely  pub- 
lished and  carefully  verified  at  the  time,  the  appar- 
ition of  this  well-known  naval  officer  was  distinctly 
seen  by  at  least  two  persons,  and  of  course  several 
hours  before  news  was  received  in  England  of  the 
disaster  which  cost  him  his  life. 

Instances  of  this  kind  are  abundant.     Edmund 
Gumey,    who    made    a    special    study    of    these 
phenomena    and    published    his    findings    in    his 
exhaustive  volumes  on  Phantasms  of  the  Living, 
discusses  no  less  than  seven  hundred  cases  of 
apparitions  which  he  had  collected.     Since  this 
time,   the  Journal  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  has  never  failed  to  record  new  ones. 
A  ''census  of  hallucinations, "  instituted  by  Gurney 
and  continued  after  his  death  by  the  Society,  has 
yielded  statements  from  over  twenty-five  thousand 
persons;  and  the  result  would  seem  to  show  that, 
in  England,  about  one  adult  person  in  ten  has  had 
some  experience  of  this  kind  at  least  once  in  his 
lifetime.     A  great  number  of  these  occurrences 
were  "veridical,"  i.  e.,  they  coincide  with  some 
calamity  which  has  happened  to  the  person  who 
appears.     Gurney  explains  this  type  of  coincidence 
on  the  ground  that  the  victim  of  calamity  is,  at  the 


i 

r 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    165 

moment  of  his  sudden  dissolution,  given  power  to 
impress  himself  upon  the  mind  of  the  ''percipient" 
in  the  form  of  a  vision  or  hallucination.  Other 
distinguished  men  who  have  studied  phenomena 
of  this  kind  and  recorded  actual  cases  are  Sir 
William  Crookes,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  Robert 
Dale  Owen,  and  Professor  Aksakoff.  All  have 
registered  their  belief  in  the  reahty  of  the  occur- 
rences and  their  significance  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  general  problem  of  immortality. 

The  alleged  communications  from  the  other 
world  which  are  grouped  in  the  second  class,  are 
much  more  extensive  in  number  and  variety,  and 
also  much  more  important  in  character.  These 
are  all  indirect  manifestations,  obtained  through 
the  agency  of  mediums;  and  take  the  form  either 
of  such  physical  phenomena  as  responsive  rappings, 
luminous  appearances,  levitation  of  articles  of 
furniture,  etc.,  or  else  of  messages  delivered  by 
word  of  mouth  or  by  automatic  writing. 

Of  the  physical  phenomena,  the  most  amazing 
are  those  seen  and  recorded  by  Sir  William  Crookes 
during  his  experiments  with  his  famous  medium, 
Home.  One  of  the  most  startling  was  the  taking 
of  a  red-hot  coal,  a  little  smaller  than  a  cricket- 
ball,  out  of  the  hearth  fire,  and  the  carrying  of  it 
up  and  down  the  room.  One  of  the  witnesses 
to  this  act  records  that  "before  he  (Home)  threw 
it  in  the  fire,  I  put  my  hand  close  to  it  and  felt 
the  heat  like  that  of  a  live  coal."^     Sir  William 

'  Quoted  in  Barrett's  Psychical  Research,  page  217. 


1 66 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


saw  this  done  more  than  once,  and  states  that 
no  known  chemical  preparation,  even  had  Home 
tried  to  use  any,  could  have  preserved  the  skin  from 
injury;  and  yet  a  careful  examination  of  his  fingers 
revealed  no  signs  of  burning.     Other  phenomena, 
some  of  them  of  levitation,  were  repeatedly  wit- 
nessed at  the  hands  of  this  astonishing  medium; 
and  all  of  those  observed  by  Crookes,  it  may  be 
well  to  note,  took  place  in  his  own  house,  and  some 
of  the  most  remarkable  under  the  glare  of  an 
electric  light!     Incredible  as  the  testimony  un- 
doubtedly appears  to  one  who  comes  to  its  exam- 
ination for  the  first  time,   and  great  as  is  the 
temptation  to  cast  it  aside  along  with  the  innumer- 
able stories  of  a  similar  kind,  we  are  forced  in  this 
case  to  give  it  recognition,  if  only  because  of  the 
standing  of  Sir  William  Crookes  in  the  worid  of 
science  as  a  skilled  and  accurate  observer.     In 
spite  of  ridicule  and  rebuke,  and  in  spite  also  of 
discredit   cast   upon   Home,    Crookes  has   never 
deviated  from  his  original  position  that  the  phe- 
nomena which  he  witnessed  were  genuine,   and 
were  of  a  supernatural,  or  at  least  supernormal, 
character. 

Much  more  important  are  the  verbal  communi- 
cations which  are  said  to  come  from  the  living  dead 
through  the  "possessed"  persons  of  mediums,  in 
either  written  or  spoken  form.  These  phenomena 
run  all  the  way  from  the  scrawlings  with  pencil  or 
planchette  of  the  many  persons  who  seem  to  be 
endowed  with  crude   * ' mediumistic "  powers,   to 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    167 

the  amazing  exploits  of  a  man  like  the  Rev  W 
Stamton  Moses  or  of  a  woman  like  Mrs    Piper' 
A  large  part  of  the  work  of  the  Society  has  been 
devoted  to  the  careful  and  prolonged  study  of  the 
more  remarkable  of  these  mediums,  and  for  a 
first-hand  examination  of  the  results  one  must 
have  resort  to  the  long  series  of  volumes  of  the 
Society  s  Proceedings.     Useful  interpretations  of 
these     communications, "  from  the  standpoint  of 
spiritualistic  hypothesis,  have  been  published  in 
Sir  Oliver  _  Lodge's    The  Survival  of  Man,   and 
especially   m   F.  W.  H.  Myers's   work  entitled, 
Human  Personality  and  Its  Survival  After  Bodily 
Death.  "^ 

With  all  of  these  mediums  we  have  practically 
the  same  phenomena,  varying  only  in  the  unim- 
portant details  of  their  presentation.     Thus  some 
of  the  mediums  give  their  communications  while 
m  a  trance  and  others  while  in  a  normal  state  of 
consciousness;  sometimes,  as  has  been  said,  they 
wnte    and    sometimes    they    speak.     From    the 
standpoint  of  those  who  believe  in  spirit  communi- 
cation, the  medium  is  "possessed"  or  "controlled" 
by  different  familiar  spirits,  who  use  this  means  of 
making  their  continued  existence  known  to  those 
whom  they  have  left.     Sometimes  a  medium  is 
possessed"  by  more  than  one  spirit,  one  using 
her  hps  for  communication  and  one  her  hand 
Sometimesthe  spirits  assume  different  personahties. 
Thus  Mrs.  Piper's  "controls"  have  become  known 
as  Phinuit,  George  Pelham,  Doctor,  and  Rector- 


I68 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


while  Stainton  Moses  had  the  almost  unique  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  agent  of  certain  well-known 
dead  of  ancient  and  medieval  times.     Almost  al- 
ways,  with    the   greater   mediums,    it   has   been 
found  possible  to  hold  definite  conversations  with 
the  '* controls,"  as  witness  the  interminable  con- 
versations recorded  in  the  Proceedings.     In  every 
case,  the  test  of  communication   as  a  bona  fide 
message  from  the  world  beyond,  has  been  the 
impossibility   of   the   facts   communicated   being 
known  either  to  the  medium  or  to  any  person  even 
remotely  in  touch  with  the  medium.     Two  very 
famous  incidents  may  here  be  cited  by  way  of 
illustration. 

On  a  certain  Sunday  night,  in  his  London  lodg- 
ings, Mr.  Moses's  hand  wrote  the  announcement 
of  the  death  of  a  lady  in  a  country  house  two  hun- 
dred miles  away.     Mr.  Moses  had  met  this  lady 
once  at  a  seance,  but  knew  nothing  about  her,  or 
of  her  illness  and  death.     A  few  days  later,  Mr. 
Moses  wrote  what  purported  to  be  a  message  from 
the  lady  herself,  with  the  information  that  the 
hand- writing  was  like  her  own,  and  therefore  could 
be  taken  as  evidence  of  her  identity.     On  receiving 
other  messages,  many  of  which  contained  personal 
matters,  Mr.  Moses  pasted  down  the  pages  of  his 
note-book  containing  the  material,  marked  them 
outside  "Private,"  and  mentioned  them  to  no- 
body.    Years  afterwards,  Mr.  Myers,  into  whose 
hands  Mr.  Moses's  papers  had  come,  opened  these 
pages,  and,  on  reading  the  messages,  recognized 


h'='     -.  U-«  — j6w»**^     -f-'i'^H 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    169 

the  lady  as  one  whom  he  had  known  well.  On 
studying  the  handwriting,  it  was  found,  in  the 
judgment  of  an  expert  and  of  her  son,  to  bear 
unmistakable  resemblances  to  that  of  the  letters 
which  she  had  left.' 

A  still  more  remarkable  case  is  one  cited  by 
Maeterlinck,  in  his  Our  Eternity,  as  an  instance  of 
*'the  farthest  point  which  it  is  possible  to  attain" 
along  these  lines  of  research.  One  day  while 
''sitting"  with  Mrs.  Piper,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  handed 
her  a  gold  watch,  which  had  belonged  to  an  uncle 
who  had  died  some  twenty  years  before,  and  which 
had  just  now  been  sent  to  him  by  that  uncle's 
twin-brother.  On  receiving  the  watch,  Mrs. 
Piper  began  to  relate  a  great  number  of  details 
concerning  the  childhood  of  this  dead  uncle,  all 
of  them  unknown  to  Sir  Oliver.  Upon  inquiry  of 
the  surviving  uncle,  most  of  these  details  were 
confirmed,  although  the  memory  of  them  had 
long  since  lapsed,  until  revived  by  this  occurrence; 
and  those  which  this  man  could  not  recall,  were 
later  confirmed  by  a  third  brother,  an  old  sea- 
captain  in  Cornwall,  who  expressed  amazement 
that  such  strange  questions  should  be  put  to  him !  ^ 

An  extension  of  the  possibilities  of  this  inquiry 
has  come  with  the  deaths  of  some  of  those  who  have 
most  earnestly  investigated  these  spiritistic  phe- 
nomena. Myers,  Richard  Hodgson,  and  William 
James  have  all  departed  and  have  thus  given  the 

»  Cited  in  Barrett's  Psychical  Research,  page  224. 
'  See  Our  Eternity,  pages  1 15-16. 


■iim^:Si'(^:^*'>  ■im-?':-!'-. 


170 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


researchers  upon  this  side  the  great  advantage  of 
having  comrades  upon  the  other  side,  who  under- 
stand the  problem  and  know  what  must  be  done 
Myers  and  Hodgson  especially  promised  to  come 
back,  and  urged  their  friends  to  be  on  the  look- 
out for  them.     Both  ostensibly  kept  their  word, 
the  former  through  the  medium,  Mrs.  Thompson, 
and  the  latter  through  Mrs.  Piper.     Reports  of 
communications  from  William  James  have  already 
appeared  more  than  once  since  his  death.     In  no 
case,  however,  have  these  phenomena  come  up 
to  what  may  rightly  be  described  as  reasonable 
expectations.     Conditions  could  not  have  been 
more  favourable  than  in  the  Hodgson  case.     Dr 
Hodgson,  during  his  lifetime,  was  a  most  inde- 
fatigable  and   convinced   labourer   in   this   field. 
The  medium  was  Mrs.  Piper,  with  whom  he  had 
worked    twice    a    week    for    many    years.     The 
"sitter"  was  William  James,  a  frequent  worker 
with  Mrs.  Piper,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  Hodgson. 
The  sittings  were  numerous— the  search  prolonged! 
And  yet  in  his  voluminous  report,  which  covers 
over  a  hundred  and  twenty  pages  of  the  Proceed- 
ings  (volume  23),  Professor  James  does  not  find 
It  possible  to  say  anything  definite.     ' '  I  myself  feel 
as  if  an  external  will  to  communicate  were  pro- 
bably  there.    ...     But  if  asked  whether  the 
will   to   communicate   be   Hodgson's,    I   remain 
uncertain    and    await    more    facts."     Even    the 
elaborate    system    of     "cross-correspondences." 
upon  which  such  great  hopes  were  at  one  time 


'fis^!^ssxm».,**mmmumm»tswmvmmmm»?&'-i 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    171 

placed,  have  not  cleared  up  the  matter.  They  have 
added  to  the  complexity  of  the  problem,  but  have 
left  the  evidential  value  of  the  communications 
about  where  it  was  before.' 


Now  what  is  to  be  said  about  all  this  work  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  demonstration  of  our  faith  in  the  im- 
mortal life?  Has  all  of  this  careful  investigation 
brought  us  any  facts  which  would  warrant  us  in 
asserting  that  the  case  has  been  proved  ? 

Before  coming  to  the  immediate  consideration 
of  this  inquiry,  it  may  be  well  to  make  a  few  ob- 
servations upon  the  character  of  the  work  accom- 
plished, as  a  kind  of  preliminary  explanation  of  our 
final  judgment  in  the  matter. 

In  the  first  place,  let  it  be  noted  that  there  can 
be  nothing  but  praise  for  the  determination  of  the 
founders  of  this  Society  to  carry  the  exact  methods 
of  scientific  investigation  into  this  realm  of  mist 
and  shadow,  and  equal  praise  for  them  and  their 
successors  for  their  insistence  that  the  work  should 
be  carried  on  until  some  definite  conclusions  could 
be  reached.  Professor  Sidgwick  was  right,  when 
he  declared,  in  his  introductory  address  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Society,  that  the  attitude  of  the  world 
toward  all  these  questions  of  hypnotism,  mind- 

'  For  details  of  the  "cross-correspondence"  records,  see  Pro- 
ceedings, volumes  20-25. 


172 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


reading,  telepathy,   apparitions,   communications 
from  the  dead,  etc.,  had  long  been  nothing  short  of 
a  scandal-on  the  one  side,  as  he  put  it,  indiscrim- 
mate  credulity  on  the  part  of  those  who  had  first- 
hand knowledge  of  the  facts,  and  on  the  other  hand 
open  contempt  and  a  flat  refusal  to  investigate  on 
the  part  of  those  who  had  scientific  knowledge  and 
training.     Especially  was  this  true  in  an  age  which 
prided  Itself  upon  its  scientific  character'     Here 
were  the  scholars  of  the  worid  pushing  their  re- 
searches into  the  remotest  realms  of  the  natural 
worid.     Nothing  seemed  too  lowly  for  their  atten- 
tion or  too  distant  for  their  pursuit.     And  yet  here 
at  the  very  threshold  of  the  mind  itself,  was  this 
vast  area  of  experience  which  science  seemed  quite 
content  to  abandon  to  the  '^  disorderly  mystery 
of  Ignorance.  "     Unquestionably  the  great  mass  of 
this  experience  is  a  poisonous  compound  of  illusion 
superstition,  and  fraud.     But  must  not  much  the 
same  thing  be  said  of  the  gathered  material  of 
history  and  religion?     And  just  as  it  has  been 
found  to  be  true  that  underneath  the  legends  of 
history  and  the  dogmas  of  religion  there  is  a  certain 
body  of  fact,  why  may  it  not  be  also  true  that 
underneath  all  the  error,  credulity,  and  falsehood 
of  so-called  psychic  phenomena,  there  is  a  residuum 
of  reality  which  cannot  safely  be  neglected^     In 
any  case,  if  we  be  true  scientists,  must  we  not 
proceed  on  this  assumption?     Or— still  better- 
must  we  not  at  least  investigate  before  we  laugh 
and  turn  away?     Do  we  really  know  enough  to 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research     173 

justify  our  scorn  and  neglect,  if  we  have  never 
observed  and  tested?  Such  were  the  questions 
which  inevitably  pressed  for  answer  in  such  an 
age  as  ours,  and  he  was  the  true  scientist  who 
responded  to  their  challenge  in  humility  of  spirit, 
and  sought  here  as  elsewhere  for  the  facts.  Men 
had  taken  every  conceivable  attitude  toward  this 
matter,  from  reverence  on  the  one  hand  to  amuse- 
ment and  scorn  upon  the  other,  except  that  one 
which  is  alone  scientifically  defensible — namely, 
rational  inquiry!  Now  at  last,  thanks  to  a  few 
brave  spirits,  this  has  come.  Hence  the  satisfac- 
tion with  which  today  we  record  the  organization 
of  this  important  scientific  work,  and  the  prosecu- 
tion of  its  difficult  and  oftentimes  tedious  task 
through  more  than  thirty  years! 

In  the  second  place,  we  must  note  that  the  re- 
searches of  the  Society  have  been  carried  on  from 
the  beginning  in  accordance  with  the  most  rigid 
scientific  principles,  and  are  to  be  regarded  as 
among  the  most  creditable  scientific  endeavours 
of  modem  times.  This  of  course  is  just  contrary 
to  the  commonly  accepted  opinion,  even  among 
scientific  men!  Ordinarily  it  is  assumed,  without 
evidence  or  argument,  that  the  members  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  are  committed  to 
a  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  phenomena  which  they 
are  studying,  and  are  simply  engaged  in  the  pleas- 
ant task  of  establishing,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  the 
truth  of  their  preconceived  ideas.  The  mere  fact 
that  a  man  is  interested  in  these  matters  is  accepted 


r 


174 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


as  evidence  of  a  certain  weakness  in  his  mentality. 
His  identification  with  the  Society  is  taken  as 
proof  positive  either  of  his  essentially  credulous 
nature,    or    his    approaching    senility.     Even    as 
late  as  1914,  a  man  of  the  eminence  of  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  can  find  it  possible  to  speak  of  these  facts 
m  his  Presidential  Address  before  the  Royal  Society' 
as  "scorned  by  orthodox  science,  "  and  describe  his 
reference  to  them  as  an  annoyance  to  his  hearers  ' 
It  would  be  difficult  to  name  many  men  more  dis- 
tinguished in  the  modern  world  of  science  than 
bir  Wilham   Crookes,   Sir  Oliver  Lodge    Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  Henry  Sidgwick,  William  James 
and   Henn    Bergson.     And   yet   it   is   still   light- 
heartedly  assumed  that  the  workers  in  this  field 
are  not  scientific  in  their  methods  and  aims,  but 
sentimental  and  superstitious ! 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact,  of  course,  nothing  could 
be  much  farther  from  the  truth  than  such  an  idea 
as  this.     To  begin  with,  the  Society  is  uncom- 
mitted to  any  theory,  or  belief,  of  any  kind     No 
member  accepts  any  particular  explanation  of  the 
facts  involved,  or  even  admits  that  there  are  any 
facts.     Faithful  to  its  carefully  selected  name 
the    organization    simply    asserts    that    in    this 
mystic  realm  of  psychic  experience,  there  is  a 
great  inchoate  mass  of  phenomena  which  calls 
for  systematic  "research. "     What  the  end  of  this 
research"    will    be-whether   the   unveiling   of 
universal  fraud,  the  discovery  of  hitherto  unsus- 

'  See  Continuity,  pages  102-103. 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    175 

pected  mental  faculties  and  powers,  or  the  proof 
of  the  reality  of  the  unseen  world— cannot  be 
foreseen.     But  this  end,  whatever  it  may  be,  is 
not   the  issue   involved.     Like   any   other  great 
scientific  organization,  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research   is   concerned   simply   and   solely   with 
finding  out  what  is  true,  and  then  publishing  this 
truth  to  the  world.     Said  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  in 
his  Presidential  Address,  "The  Society,  as  such, 
has  no  views,  no  beliefs,  no  hypotheses,  except,' 
perhaps,  the  opinion  that  there  is  an  open  field 
of  inquiry;  that  not  all  the  faculties  and  potential- 
ities of  man  have  been  studied  and  explained  up 
to  date,  in  terms  of  nerve  and  brain.  "^ 

Furthermore,  in  exploring  this  "open  field  of 
inquiry,'*  the  Society  has  practised  the  most  rigid 
methods  of  investigation.     It  has  been  scientific 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  that  word.     Maeterlinck 
rightly  describes  its  work  as  "a  masterpiece  of 
scientific  patience  and  conscientiousness."     Not 
an  incident  has  been  admitted  into  the  record 
which  has  not  been  supported  by  unimpeachable 
evidence;  and  the  canons  of  evidence  used  have 
been  the  strictest  known.     No  better  proof  of  the 
rigid  character  of  the  investigations  conducted  by 
the  Society  could  be  given  than  the  secession  some 
years  ago  of  a  number  of  members  because  of  the 
impossible   standard   of  proof   exacted;  and   the 
bitter  attacks  to  which  it  has  ever  been  subjected 
by  the  Spiritualist  press,   which   has  constantly 
'  Quoted  in  Barrett's  Psychical  Research,  page  247. 


„i,„.SUMmSlmattUkJUt3 


=5  SV  A  iSnsif .s^^is* » ; 


176 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


referred  to  it  as  the  Society  "for  the  suppression 
of    facts,'*    "for    the    wholesale    imputation    of 
imposture,"  and   "for  the  repudiation  of  every 
revelation   .    .    .   pressing    upon    humanity   from 
the  regions  of  light  and  knowledge. " '     Indeed,  it 
is  not^  too  much  to  say  that  the  attitude  of  the 
Psychical    Researchers   from    the   beginning   has 
been  prevailingly  that  of  deep-rooted  scepticism. 
Doubt    until    doubt    becomes    absurd;  disbelieve 
until   disbelief  is  impossible;  "prove  all   things, 
hold  fast  that  which  is  good"— these  have  been 
the    watchwords    throughout.     With    the    result 
that  the  Proceedings,  whatever  else  they  may  or 
may  not  be,  are  a  model  of  scientific  procedure! 

In  fact  [says  Professor  James  in  his  essay  on  What 
Psychical  Research  Has  Accomplished^  were  I  asked 
to  point  to  a  scientific  journal  where  hard-headedness 
and  never-sleeping  suspicion  of  sources  of  error  might 
be  seen  in  their  full  bloom,  I  think  I  should  have'^to 
fall  back  on  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research.  The  common  run  of  papers,  .  .  .  which 
one  finds  in  other  professional  organs,  are  apt  to  show 
a  far  lower  level  of  critical  conscientiousness.  ^ 

After  all  due  credit,  however,  has  been  given 
to  the  Society  for  its  true  scientific  purpose  and 
its  scrupulous  conscientiousness  in  the  furtherance 
of  its  work,  certain  very  serious  reservations 
must  be  noted,  or  at  least  difficulties  recognized. 

'  Cited  in  Maeterlinck's  Our  Eternity,  page  83. 
^  See  The  Will  to  Believe,  page  303. 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research     177 

Thus,    in    the   first   place,    the   cultivators    of 
psychical  research  stand  alone  among  scientists 
in  being  under  the  constant  necessity  of  guarding 
their  work  against  the  vitiating  entanglements  of 
fraud.     Such  a  complication  is  almost  unheard  of 
in  any  other  department  of  scientific  investigation. 
Now  and  again  there  has  appeared  a  dishonest 
claim,  a  deceptive  statement,  or  even  a  forged 
record.     But  such  episodes  are  so  few  in  the  activi- 
ties of  modern  science,  as  to  be  practically  negligi- 
ble.    The   scientist   of   our   time   feels   perfectly 
safe  in  going  ahead  under  the  assumption  that  the 
word  and  work  of  his  colleagues  and  assistants 
are  to  be  trusted.     Not  so  is  it,  however,  in  the 
field  of  psychical  research.     On  the  contrary,  the 
assumption   must  be  all   the  other  way.     Long 
experience  with  mediums  shows  conclusively  that 
a  great  number  of  them  are  out  and  out  fakers,  and 
that  a  majority  at  least  of  their  exploits  are  based 
on  nothing  but  trickery  and  fraud.     Some  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  these  mediums  have  prac- 
tised their  wonders  for  long  periods  of  time  only 
to  be^  exposed  in  the  end— as  witness  Eusapia 
Paladino  who,  after  a  brilliant  career  of  success, 
was  detected  in  outrageous  fraud ;  and  even  those 
who  have  not  been  exposed,  have  nearly  always 
been  plausibly  charged  with  dishonesty— as  wit- 
ness Crookes's  medium.  Home.     The  possibilities 
of  fraud  in  this  work  are  impressively  indicated 
by  the  statement  of  Hermann,  the  famous  pres- 
tidigitateur,  that  he  had  devoted  years  of  study 


Am, 1 1 1 fiiiiS'.titiii&ii'w 


^^^^S^^^^S 


t^mim'-^imii. 


M^isJsiMfc.. 


178 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


to  so-called  spiritistic  phenomena,  and  had  yet  to 
see  the  exploit  which  he  could  not  reproduce  by 
the    ordinary    methods  of  sleight-of-hand.      And 
these  possibiHties  are  of  course  indefinitely  mag- 
nified by  the  pecuHar  insistence  of  mediums  upon 
performing    their   feats   under   conditions   which 
make  the  perpetration  of  fraud  easy  and  its  dis- 
covery difficult.     The  successful  experiments  of 
Crookes  in  the  full  glare  of  an  electric  light  would 
seem  to  make  this  contention  ridiculous.     But  still 
is  this  condirion  imposed  by  the  mediums,  and 
still  is  it  granted  by  the  investigators.     It  is  of 
course  quite  impossible  to  prove  that  these  extra- 
ordmary  conditions  are  not  requisite  for  successful 
results;  but  the  sceptic  is  certainly  pardonable  if 
he  argues  that,  if  phenomena  do  not  occur  under 
normal  conditions  it  is  not  the  phenomena  them- 
selves which  are  prevented  from  taking  place  but 
the  undiscovered  frauds  to  which  their  appearance 
under  abnormal  conditions  is  due. ' 

In^  the  second  place,  the  psychical  researchers 
find  It  utteriy  impossible  to  conform  to  one  of  the 
most  important  of  the  standard  requirements  of 
modem  scientific  work— namely,  the  verification 
of  results.  In  all  investigation  in  the  various  fields 
of  natural  science,  no  discovery  is  accepted  until 

'It  should  be  stated  that  the  element  of  fraud  intrudes  almost 
exclusively  into  the  phenomena  of  visual  hallucination  and 
levitation.  In  the  phenomena  of  verbal  or  written  communica- 
tions it  IS  not  so  serious;  and  in  the  case  of  the  greater  mediums. 
Ii^e  Dr.  Moses  and  Mrs.  Piper,  is  not  to  be  considered  at 
all. 


f 


I 


ImmortaHty  and  Scientific  Research     179 

the  experience  upon  which  it  is  based  has  been 
reproduced  by  other  competent  observers  and  the 
discovery    repeated.     When    an    astronomer    at 
Lick  reports  the  appearance  of  a  new  star  in  the 
heavens,  a  hundred  telescopes  are  at  once  pointed 
to  the  spot  designated,  and  the  star  re-located 
by   as   many   different   astronomers.     When   M. 
Curie  and  Mme.  Curie  isolated  radium,  scientists 
throughout  the  worid  acquainted  themselves  with 
the  details  of  the  experiments  of  these  two  experts, 
and  proceeded  at  once  to  reproduce  them.     When 
Dr.  Friedmann  proclaimed  the  discovery  of  his 
tuberculosis   vaccine,   physicians   everywhere  in- 
sisted that  they  should  be  allowed  to  use  the  new 
remedy  in  their  own  hospitals  and  watch  results. 
And  in  all  of  these  cases,  it  is  only  when  the  results 
obtained  by  other  men  verify  the  results  obtained 
by  the  original  discoverer,  that  these  results  are 
accepted.     Verification,    in    other    words,    is    an 
accepted  condition  of  scientific  advance!    And  it 
is  just   this   verification   which   the   students   of 
psychical  research  cannot  secure.     No  experience 
undergone  by  one  man  can  be  reproduced  under 
the  same  conditions  by  another.     Several  men, 
observing  the  same  phenomenon,  can  report  the 
same  results.      But  repetition,  again  and  again, 
upon   the   sure   foundation   of   which   all    other 
scientific  discoveries   are  based,  cannot  here  be 
had! 

And  lastly,  it  must  be  admitted,  with  however 
much  regret,  that  psychical  research  lacks  that 


i8o 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


characteristic  of  "cumulative  achievement"  which 
IS  the  sure  mark  of  scientific  vitaHty.     Every  true 
science  has  proceeded  in  exactly  the  same  way— 
by  making  constant  Httle  additions  to  the  original 
deposit  of  fact  by  a  discovery  here,  a  correction 
there,    a    new    viewpoint    somewhere    else.     Old 
methods  are  displaced  by  new;  ancient  sources  of 
error   are   corrected;  long-standing  problems  de- 
finitely settled  and  fresh  ones  created.     Take  the 
story  of  evolution,  for  example!     Think  of  the 
innumerable  revisions  and  enlargements  to  which 
the  original  Darwinian  theory  has  been  subjected 
and  the  changed  aspect  which  it  has  assumed  as  the 
result  of  fifty  years  of  unremitting  investigation! 
It  IS  a  story  of  controversies,  set-backs,  reversals, 
old    errors,  and    new    hypotheses.     But    always 
we  have  the  sense  of  progress,  of  construction,  of 
sure  even  if  slow  approach  to  truth !     Thirty  years 
of  psychical   research,   however,   have   given   us 
nothing  of  this  kind.     The  work,  to  be  sure,  has 
been  exhaustive;  the  records  enormous  in  quan- 
tity; numerous  frauds  have  been  exposed,  and  the 
reality    of    certain    isolated    experiences    proved. 
But  as  regards  the  basic  problem  at  the  heart 
of  It  all,  we  are  just  where  we  were  at  the  beginning. 
In  every  new  case  that  comes  up  for  investigation 
the  inquirer  begins  at  practically  the  same  point 
where  the  founders  of  the  Society  began  in  1882 » 
What  wonder,  in  the  face  of  this  fact,  that  psy- 
chical  research   has    been    recently    dubbed    "a 
Sisyphus  among  the  sciences!" 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research     181 


? 


VI 


With  these  preliminary  observations  as  to  the 
general  character  of  the  work  which  has  been 
accomplished,    we   are   now   ready,    perhaps,    to 
answer  the  decisive  question  as  to  whether  any- 
thing definite  has  been  found  as  regards  the  future 
life.     Do  the  investigations  of  this  Society  give 
us  the  proof  of  immortality  which  our  age  seems 
to  be  more  and  more  demanding?     Can  we  accept 
the  doctrine  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  in  his  Continuity, 
that  the  evidence  obtained  ''goes  to  prove  that 
discarnate   intelligence   under  certain   conditions 
may  interact  with  us  on  the  material  side, 
and  that  gradually  we  may  hope  to  attain  some 
understanding  of  the  nature  of  a  larger,  perhaps 
ethereal  existence,  and  of  the  conditions  regulating 
intercourse  across  the  chasm.  "^ 

It  must  be  admitted,  I  believe,  that,  whatever 
else  the  psychical  researchers  may  or  may  not  have 
done,  they  have  at  least  demonstrated  that,  amid 
all  the  fraud  and  superstition  which  are  unques- 
tionably present  in  this  field  of  experience,  there  is 
a  very  large  residuum  of  fact,  which  rightly  calls 
for  scientific  explanation.  After  all  the  results  of 
trickery  and  sheer  credulity  have  been  removed, 
there  still  remains  a  great  mass  of  hypnotic,  tele- 
pathic, apparitional,  and  "  mediumistic  "  phenom- 
ena which  must  be  regarded  as  in  some  sense 
or  other  genuine.     In  other  words,  the  Society 

*  See  Continuity,  page  103. 


?-TT>'iiiimS3bi^BMM 


182 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


for  Psychical  Research  has  demonstrated  that 
there  is  something  more  in  this  mystical  field  than 
mere  deception  and  superstition.  Something  real 
is  happening,  and  always  has  happened.  The 
extraordinary  nature  of  the  events  does  not  alter 
their  reality.  Many  of  these  things  at  which  we 
have  been  laughing  all  these  years  are  facts,  and 
must,  in  the  name  of  truth,  be  treated  as  facts! 

But  do  these  facts,  as  Dr.  Savage  tells  us  he 
believes  in  his  Life  Beyond  Death,  "take  us  over 
the  border  and  whisper  in  our  ears  the  certainty 
of  immortal  life?"^  Is  it  true  that  these  facts 
can  only  be  satisfactorily  explained  as  communica- 
tions from  invisible  intelligences,  and  thus  con- 
stitute a  scientific  demonstration  that  death  is  not 
the  end  ? 

As  regards  the  phenomena  of  apparitions,  it  is 
certain,  to  my  mind,  that  they  offer  no  proof  of 
the  survival  of  the  dead.  Assuming,  for  the  sake 
of  argument,  that  the  apparitions  occur  exactly 
as  has  been  related  in  hundreds  of  instances,  the 
very  most  that  can  be  asserted  is  that  these 
appearances  demonstrate  that  one  person  can, 
by  the  intensity  of  his  directed  thought  or  spiritual 
desire,  create  a  phantom  of  himself  in  the  mind  of 
another  person  over  a  great  distance  of  space. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  of  this,  says  Professor 
Barrett,  ''unless  we  reject  all  testimony.'*^    But 

^  See  Life  Beyond  Death,  the  entire  chapter  on  "  The  Sodety 
for  Psychical  Research  and  the  Immortal  Life,"  pages  245-70. 
'  See  Psychical  Research,  page  113. 


/ 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    183 

of  anything  more  than  this,  there  can,  and  must 
be.  It  seems  to  me,  very  grave  doubt  indeed.     It 
is  noticeable,  for  example,  that  in  all  the  cases 
accepted  as  genuine,  the  apparitions  have  been 
projected  at  some  critical  moment  in  the  lives  of 
the  persons  seen,  usually  the  moment  of  death. 
They  convey  no  suggestion  of  the  new  "spiritual 
body"  which  they  have  presumably  assumed,  but 
reproduce  always  the  familiar   "natural   body" 
which   they  have  worn  here  upon  earth.     Still 
more,  the  phantasms  appear  for  but  a  moment, 
and  then  fade  away  never  to  return.     Is  it  not 
much  more  natural— and  also  scientific !— to  as- 
sume, under  such  circumstances,  that  these  ap- 
pearances  are  to  be  explained  as  the  momentary 
telepathic  projection  of  the  Hving  person  rather 
than  as  the  terrestrial  reappearance  of  the  dead, 
especially  as  it  has  been  proved  that   "normal 
hallucinations  can  be  produced  telepathically?'* 
Is  it  not  more  reasonable  to  look  upon  these  phan- 
tasms as  the  final  glimmers  of  the  old  existence 
rather  than  as  the  first  glimmers  of  the  new?^     If 
these  apparitions  appeared  again  and  again  for  a 
considerable  period  after  death,  or  if  the  appari- 
tions of  those  long  dead  were  ever  seen  or  could 
be  conjured  up  as  the  Witch  of  Endor  conjured  up 
the  spirit  of  Samuel  for  King  Saul,  we  might  be  able 
to  argue  that,  in  these  phenomena,  we  had  proof 
of  immortaHty.     But  no  such  argument  is  now 
possible  on  the  basis  of  these  flitting  phantasms 

'  See  Maeterlinck's  Our  Eternity,  page  86. 


1 84 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


which  fade  almost  as  soon  as  they  appear.     On 
the  contrary,  if  any  evidence  bearing  upon  the 
immortal  life  is  to  be  gathered  here  at  all,  it  would 
seem  to  be  the  unfavourable  conclusion  that  spirit- 
ual energy  survives  death  only  momentarily  and 
then   lapses  forever.     All  these  inferences,  how- 
ever, both  positive  and  negative,  are  scientifically 
inadmissible.     Every  phenomenon  of  apparitions 
can  be  satisfactorily  explained  by  facts  and  condi- 
tions included  well  within  the  scope  of  our  present 
existence.     So  long  as  this  is  possible,  resort    to 
the  hypothesis  of  immortality  is  as  irrational  as 
it  is  unnecessary. 

As  regards  the  alleged  communications  from  the 
dead,  we  face  a  different  and  much  more  difficult 
problem.  And  in  discussing  these  phenomena,  let 
it  be  said  that  we  have  reference  exclusively  to 
that  higher  class  of  verbal  messages  associated 
with  the  work  of  such  a  medium  as  Mrs.  Piper. 
If  these  cannot  give  us  the  demonstration  of 
immortality  which  we  seek,  surely  no  lower  phe- 
nomena of  this  class  can  avail  us  anything. 

Nobody  can  study  the  evidence  gathered  in  this 
particular  field  without  noticing,  first  of  all,  the 
trividity,  almost  the  inanity,  of  the  communica- 
tions received.  Here  we  come  eager  for  evidence 
of  the  future  life  and  information  as  to  what  it 
means  to  die  and  pass  into  the  great  beyond! 
And  what  do  we  get?  First  of  all— and  naturally 
enough,  perhaps!— frantic  endeavours  on  the  part 
of  the  alleged  spirits  to  prove  their  identity  by  the 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research     185 

citation  of  intricate  and  unimportant  details  of 
where  they  were  and  what  they  did  at  different 
times  when  they  were  here  among  men.     Then 
the  endless  and  tedious  rehearsal  of  the  various 
family  connections  of  the  individual  or  individuals 
interested  in  the  communications— of  the  peculi- 
arities, infirmities,  and  eccentricities  of  this   that 
and  the  other  person-of  trivial  and  oftentimes 
silly  episodes  that  have  happened  many  years 
before  and  have  long  since  been  forgotten !     Some- 
times there  is  a  recounting  of  an  event  which  is 
taking  place  in  a  part  of  the  world  far  removed 
from  the  locality  in  which  the  medium  and  recip- 
ient are  sitting.     Frequently  there  is  a  prophecy 
of  something  which  is  going  to  take  place  at  some 
more  or  less  distant  moment  in  the  future.     Again 
and  again,  there  is  a  descent  to  obscurity  and 
feeble  chattering.     Even  in  the  reported  conversa- 
tions with  Myers  and  Hodgson  there  is  the  same 
perplexing  and  discouraging  barrenness  of  revela- 
tion.     Never  do  the  communications  rise  to  any 
sustained  level  of  clear  thought  and  fine  feeling 
Always  is  there  an  aggravating  focussing  of  atten- 
tion  upon   the  affairs  of  this  world   instead  of 
upon  those  of  the  world  to  come.     Least  of  all  is 
there  any  evidence  of  that  range  of  vision,  freedom 
of  action,  exaltation  of  experience,  and  general 
spirituaHzation  of  sentiment,  which  we  may  be 
pardoned  for  expecting  to  find  in  those  who  have 
thrown  off  the  shackles  of  the  flesh  and  been 
released  into  "the  virgin  reaches  of  space  and 


I86 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


time. ''  To  an  out-and-out  unbeliever  in  psychic 
phenomena,  Hke  John  Fiske,  the  triviaHty  of  these 
communications  is  an  all-sufficient  refutation  of 
their  claims. 

If  (their)  value  as  evidence  were  to  be  conceded  [he 
says],  (they)  would  seem  to  point  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  grade  of  intelligence  which  survives  the  grave 
is  about  on  a  par  with  that  which  in  the  present  life 
we  are  accustomed  to  shut  up  in  asylums  for  idiots. 
•  .  .  (This)  theory  of  things  moves  on  so  low  a 
plane  as  hardly  to  merit  notice  in  a  serious  philo- 
sophic discussion.  ^ 

And  even  to  such  a  wholly  sympathetic  student 
as  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  these  facts  appear 
baffling  if  not  absolutely  inexplicable. 

Of  what  use  is  it  to  die  [he  says],  if  all  life's  trivialities 
contmue.^     Is  it  really  worth  while  to  have  passed 
through  the  terrifying  gorges  which  open  on  the  eternal 
fields,  m  order  to  remember  that  we  had  a  great  uncle 
called  Peter  and  that  our  cousin  Paul  was  afflicted 
with  varicose  veins  and  gastric  complaint?     At  that 
rate  [he  continues],  I  should  choose  for  those  whom  I 
love  the  august  and  frozen  solitudes  of  the  everlasting 
nothing.    .    .    .    Without  demanding  a  great  miracle, 
we  would  nevertheless  think  we  had  the  right  to  expect 
from  a  mind  which  nothing  now  enthralls  some  other 
discussion  than  that  which  it  avoided  when  it  was  still 
subject  to  matter.'' 

'  See  Life  Everlastmg,  page  60. 
'See  Our  Eternity,  pages  128-29. 


Immortahty  and  Scientific  Research     187 

^     Explanations  of  this  strange  characteristic  of 
all  alleged  communications  from  the  other  world 
are  by  no  means  lacking   on  the   part   of   those 
who  believe  in  their  credibility.    Thus  Professor 
Hyslop  reminds  us  that  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
case,  the  communications  received  must  partake 
of  the  detailed  and  trivial,  since  the  main  object 
of  the  messages  is  to  convince  the  living  of  the 
identity  of  those  who  are  speaking,  and  the  proof 
of  such  identity  always  depends  upon  just  such 
unimportant  matters  as  these  which  trouble  us. ' 
The  identification  of  a  body  rests  upon  a  birth- 
mark, a  scar,  a  broken  finger,  a  ring,  a  lock  of  hair, 
an  article  of  clothing.     And  so  with  the  identifica- 
tion of  those  who  have  passed  into  the  beyond  and 
are  now  confronted  with  the  task  of  making  them- 
selves known !    Then  we  are  asked  to  remember 
that  the  spirits  are  communicating  through  the 
mind  of  a  medium,  and  it  is  impossible  for  them 
to  transcend  the  narrow  limits  imposed  by  this 
particular  person's  mental  apparatus  and  intellec- 
tual equipment.     Just  as 

Life,  hke  a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity, 

so  the  medium  stains  with  the  darkening  colours 
of  her  brain,  the  clear  shaft  of  hght  which  the 
living  dead  would  send  us.  And  then,  too,  we 
are  besought  to  recognize   the   difflculty   of   an 

'  See  the  discussion  of  this  subject  in  Science  and  a  Future  Life 
page  300.  •'  * 


I88 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


immortal  being  trying  to  explain  to  us  poor  crea- 
tures of  space  and  time  the  conditions  of  a  realm 
so^  alien  to  our  experience  as  to  be  literally  incon- 
ceivable!    What  words  in  our  vocabulary  shall 
the   spirit  use   to  describe   the   wonders  of  this 
immortal    existence?    What    analogies    shall    he 
summon  to  set  forth  the  things  which  "eye  hath 
not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  the  mind  of  man  con-' 
ceived  ? "     Is  not  the  situation,  relatively  speaking, 
exactly  that  of  an  adult  who  would  explain  to  a 
child  of  four  or  five  the  propositions  of  EucHd, 
the  categories  of  Kant,   or  the  Unknowable  of 
Herbert  Spencer?     And  is  not  the  communicating 
spirit,  therefore,  driven  to  talking  to  us  about  the 
trivial  things  which  we,  in  our  low  estate,  can 
understand,  just  as  a  mature  person  is  driven  to 
speaking  to  a  child  in  words  of  one  syllable  and 
discussing  with  him  the  blocks  and  toys  of  the 
nursery  ?     And  yet,  plausible  as  these  explanations 
are,  are  they  explanations  which  really  explain !     If 
the  immortal  life  is  to  be  demonstrated  by  the 
evidence  contained  in  these  "mediumistic"  com- 
munications,   must   not    the   inadequacy    of    the 
material   always  remain  a  well-nigh   insuperable 
obstacle  to  conviction  ? 

Nay,  is  it  not  something  more  than  an  obstacle? 
Is  it  not  a  positive  indication  of  what  constitutes 
the  real  explanation,  after  all,  of  these  bafiiing 
phenomena  which  we  are  considering?  The  real 
failure  of  the  psychical  researchers  to  prove  their 
case  for  immortality  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    189 

at  no  time,  in  all  their  thirty  years  of  investigation 
have  they  succeeded  in  tsolating  spirit  communica- 
tion as  the  sole  and  only  cause  of  that  which  they 
observe.     In  all  scientific  demonstrations  of  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  no  phenomenon  is 
accepted  as  the  cause  of  any  particular  effect  until 
all  other  possible  causes  have  been  shown  to  be 
impossible  and   this  one   therefore  isolated   and 
defined.     Especially  is  this  the  case  when  these 
other  possible  causes  are  less  remote  in  influence 
and  less  extraordinary  in  character  than  the  one 
at  last  determined  by  the  process  of  elimination 
Uranus  could  not  be  postulated  by  Sir  William 
Herschel  as  the  cause  of  the  extraordinary  per- 
turbation noted  in  the  planet  Saturn,  until  every 
other  and  especially  nearer  cause  had  been  tested 
and  disproved.     Natural  selection  could  not  be 
put  forward  by  Darwin  as  the  sole  explanation  of 
evolution  until  he  had  not  merely  justified  this 
process  in  itself,  but  also  proved  all  other  explana- 
tions,   such  as  arbitrary  creation   or  inheritance 
of  acquired  characteristics,  to  be  impossible.     The 
bite  of  one  particular  species  of  mosquito  could 
not  be  accepted  as  the  cause  of  yellow  fever  until 
experimenters  had  brought  themselves  into  per- 
sonal contact  with  yellow-fever  patients,  slept  in 
yellow-fever  beds,  worn  yellow-fever  clothing,  and 
proved  that  the  contagion  was  not  conveyed  by 
such  means. 

^  Now  it  is  just  this  isolating  of  spirit  communica- 
tion as  the  sole  cause  of  psychic  phenomena  which 


190 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


the  researchers,  whose  work  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing, have  never  succeeded  in  accomplishing. 
Right  here  at  hand,   within  the  borders  of  our 
present  existence,  is  a  spiritual  force,  which  has 
already  been  shown  to  be  the  explanation  of  a 
thousand  one-time  mysteries  of  human  experience, 
and  which  may  well  be  the  explanation  of  as  many 
more  that  are  still  unveiled.      I  refer,  of  course, 
to  the  wondrous  power  of  mind  or  personality. 
That  the  secrets  of  this  psychological  realm  have 
not  yet  been  plumbed  to  their  deepest  depths  no 
group  of  persons  has  shown  more  conclusively 
than  the  psychical  researchers  themselves.     It  is 
they  who  have  brought  us  face  to  face  with  the  pro- 
found mysteries    of    personality,  discovered    the 
realities  of  hypnotism  and  suggestion,  traced  the 
possibilities  of  trances  and  dreams,  taught  us  to 
accept  the  facts  of  thought-transference  and  tel- 
epathy. ^  If  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  has 
accomplished  any  one  thing  more  positively  than 
any  other,  it  is  the  inability  of  the  human  mind 
to  set  any  limits  to  the  scope  of  its  own  capacity 
and  influence.     What  we  can  or  cannot  do  in  the 
field  of  mental  action  no  man  today  can  say. 

Now  it  is  just  this  marvellous  revelation  of  the 
indefinite  potentiaHties  of  the  human  mind  which 
has  definitely  prevented  the  psychical  researchers, 
as  I  have  said,  from  isolating  spirit  communica- 
tion as  the  sole  cause  of  psychic  phenomena.  At 
the  present  stage  of  investigation  in  this  field,  the 
telepathic  hypothesis  and  the  spiritual  hypothesis 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research 


191 


seem  equally  plausible  as  explanations  of  the  ex- 
ploits of  the  mediums— and  this  for  the  simple 
reason  that  we  know  nothing  about  either  and  can 
therefore  imagine  both  with  equal  facility  as  the 
cause.     But  if  this  be  the  case,  it  is  only  the  part 
of  reason,  is  it  not,  to  say  nothing  of  scientific 
procedure,  to  have  resort  to  that  explanation  which 
keeps  us  in  the  realm  of  the  natural.     In  other 
words,  we  can  never  have  resort  to  the  super- 
natural and  abnormal,  until  every  nearer  and  more 
normal  possibility  has  been  exhausted.     And  it 
is  just  this  which  the  psychical  researchers  have 
never    done.     Innumerable    possibilities    in    our 
natural  mental  life  still  remain  to  be  explored; 
and  until  the  final  exploration  has  been  made  in 
vain— or  at  least  until  the  spirit  world  has  given 
us  evidence  much  more  convincing  than  anything 
yet  received— we  must  seek  on  this  side  of  the 
grave,  rather  than  on  the  other,  for  the  causes  and 
explanations.     As  Maeterlinck  has  so  effectively 
put  it,  in  his  Our  Eternity, 

It  is  wise  and  necessary,  before  leaving  the  terrestrial 
plane,  to  exhaust  all  the  suppositions,  all  the  explan- 
ations, there  to  be  discovered.  We  have  to  make  our 
choice  between  two  manifestations  of  the  unknown, 
two  miracles,  if  you  prefer,  whereof  one  is  situated 
m  the  world  which  we  inhabit  and  the  other  in  a  region 
which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  we  believe  to  be  separated 
from  us  by  nameless  spaces  which  no  human  being, 
ahve  or  dead,  has  crossed  to  this  day.  It  is  natural 
that  we  should  stay  in  our  own  world  as  long  as  it 


.JLw*,*,yMP;  ^'^-^t*  ,t 


^^p^^gp' 


192 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


gives  us  a  foothold,  or  as  long  as  we  are  not  pitilessly 
expelled  from  it  by  a  series  of  irresistible  and  irre- 
futable facts  issuing  from  the  adjoining  abyss.' 

But  I  believe  that  we  must  go  further!     Not 
only  is  it  more  natural  to  seek  the  explanation  of 
psychic  phenomena  in  the  mysterious  reaches  of 
human  personality  rather  than  in  the  mysterious 
realms  of  the  future  life,  because  of  the  general 
principles  just  indicated,  but  also  because  of  the 
unquestionable  fact  that  the  former  explanation 
fits  the  facts  infinitely  better  than  the  latter.     It 
is  little  short  of  ridiculous,  in  my  opinion,  to  assert 
that  immortality  is  the  one  fact  which  fits  in  as 
an  adequate  cause  with  the  communications  re- 
ceived through  the  mediums.      On  the  contrary, 
it  is  the  one  fact  which  altogether  fails  to  fit  in 
with  these  communications.     It  is  just  here  that 
the    triviality    of    these    messages    takes    on    an 
altogether  striking  degree  of  importance.     They 
are  "of  the  earth,  earthy. "     They  contain  not  one 
suggestion  of  the  unfettered  spirit.     They  move 
from  beginning  to  end  in  the  material  things  of  this 
present  realm,  in  the  petty  experiences  of  living 
persons,  in  the  transient  circumstances  of  time  and 
place,  and  never  once  in  the  sublime  regions  of 
eternal  life.     All  of  which  means,  if  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect  has  any  significance,  that  these 
so-called  communications  originate  on  the  plane 
of  earth,  and  never  on  the  plane  of  heaven.     Given 

*  See  Our  Eternity,  page  118. 


II 


ImmortaHty  and  Scientific  Research    193 

^  medium  with  mysterious  subliminal  faculties 
given  a  sitter  with  innumerable  memories  beneath 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  given  the  un- 
fathomed  possibilities  of  telepathic  communica- 
tions-and  we  have  all  the  elements  that  we  can 
need  to  explain  any  word  that  has  ever  been 
written  or  spoken  by  mediums. 

If  proof  of  immortality  is  ever  to  come  in  this 
field,  It  will  be  necessary  that  some  communica- 
tion shall  be  received  from  a  person  whose  existence 
IS  unknown  either  to  medium  or  percipient.  No 
such  case  has  ever  been  reported— nor,  if  it  was 
could  it  be  verified.  In  this  way  only,  however! 
could  the  infinitely  nearer  explanation  of  tele- 
pathic influence  be  eliminated,  and  the  spiritistic 
hypothesis  obtain  that  degree  of  isolation  which 

T^.^T..^"^^^^''^   ''   ^'  ^   ^^^^^^^fi^   doctrine. 
I^ .  W .  H.  Myers,  than  whom  no  man  believed  more 

confidently  in  spirit  revelation,  spoke  the  perfect 
refutation  of  his  own  conclusions  and  hopes,  when 
he   gave  it  as  the  result  of  his  life-long  studies 
m  hypnotism,  hallucinations,  automatic  writings 
medmmship,  etc. :  ' 

Each  of  us  is  in  reality  an  abiding  psychical  entity  far 
more  extensive  than  he  knows-an  individuality  which 
can  never  express  itself  completely  through  any  cor- 
poreal manifestation.  The  self  manifests  itself  through 
the  organism;  but  there  is  always  some  part  of  the  self 
unmamfested,  and  always,  as  it  seems,  some  power  of 
organic  expression  in  abeyance  or  reserve.^ 
'  Quoted  in  James's  The  Will  to  Believe,  page  316. 


194 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


VII 


What  we  have  here,  after  all,  in   this  whole 
attempt  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  to 
establish  the  spiritual  world  as  the  true  cause  of 
psychic  phenomena,   is  the  last  survival  of  the 
old  primitive  habit  of  appealing  to  "the  spirits" 
for  the  explanation  of  everything  which  was  other- 
wise unaccountable.     Among  savages  in  the  old 
days,  as  among  ignorant  and  superstitious  people 
today,  every  strange  noise,  every  peculiar  shadow, 
every  unexpected  night  occurrence,  every  myste- 
rious coincidence,   is   the  work  of  ghosts !    The 
human  mind  seems  to  be  so  constructed  that  it 
cannot  rest  till  it  finds  a  cause  for  all  happenings. 
In  ancient  times,  ascertainable  causes  were  few, 
and  therefore  the  spirits  were  omnipresent.     As 
knowledge  has  increased,  and  especially  as  science 
has  worked  out  step  by  step  the  intricate  relations 
of  phenomena,  the  spirits  have  retired  more  and 
more  into   the   background,    and   natural   forces 
more  and  more  usurped  their  place.     In  our  time, 
only  this  last  mysterious  realm  of  the  mind  has 
been    left    untouched— and    behold!    the    spirits 
again  appear!    From  this  field,  however,  as  from 
all  others,  they  will  disappear  as  knowledge  grows 
and  understanding  deepens,  and  the  last  area  of 
superstition  will  then  at  last  be  conquered.     And 
when  that  conquest  has  been  made,  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  will  be  duly  recorded  as 
that  group  of  persons  which  did  more  than  all 


Immortality  and  Scientific  Research    195 

■others  to  explore  the  mysteries  of  personality  and 
brmg  to  hght  the  facts  of  mental  power.  Colum 
bus  thought  to  reach  India-and  did  the  infiniteTy 
greater  thmg  of  discovering  a  new  continent.  The 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  thinks  to  reach 
the  future  life-and  similarly  does  the  infinS^ 
greater  thmg  of  discovemg.  and  also  exploring 
a  new  continent  of  mind.  i^^'^nng. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  PROOF  OF  IMMORTALITY 

"Evidence    on    the   question   of    immortality   can 
scarcely  be  obtained  by  us  by  direct  observation,  by 
any  method  known  to  us,  excepting  in  the  usual  way 
—by  death.     But  it  is  within  the  pale  of  scientific  pro-' 
cesses  to  employ  legitimate  inference  from  observed 
facts.     That  there  are  facts  bearing  on  this  question 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  that  our  knowledge  of  such 
facts  will  increase  I  have  no  doubt.      Inference  will 
then^be  likely  to  give  some  valuable  results  "—Pro 
fessor  Edward  D.  Cope,  in  Science  and  Immortality  ■ 
A  Symposium  (1887). 

'yHE  proof  of  immortality  is  not  to  be  found 
^      in  the  field  so  exhaustively  explored  by  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research.    What,  now  does 
this  mean  if  not  that  the  proof  of  immortaHty 
IS  nowhere  to  be  found  .^     If  some  of  the  best 
scientific  minds,  with  the  best  scientific  methods 
have  searched  in  vain,  is  it  not  inevitable  that  we 
should  confess  our  failure,  and  make  the  best  of 
It?    Is  not  John  Fiske  right  when  he  says,  in  his 
Life  Everlastlngr  that  our  notion  of  the  survival  of 
conscious  activity  apart  from  material  conditions 
is  not  only  unsupported  by  any  evidence  that 
can  be  gathered  from  the  world  of  which  we  have 

196 


The  Proof  of  Immortality         197 

ceivable.        And  th:s  being  the  case,  must  we  not 
content  ourselves  with  finding  consolation  in  S 
Pxske  s  further  declaration,  already  quoted  in  an- 
other  connection,  that  this  fact 

not  only  fails  to  disprove  the  validity  of  the  belief 
preslnr  "°'  ""^'"^"  ^^^  ^"^I^^-^  prima  }S: 
apparent  if  we  remember  that  human  experience  is 

ar?i„:u"fb'H-r  '^'"^  '"«"'^^'  -d  '^-""e 
are  m  all  probabihty  unseen  regions  of  existence  in 

every  way  as  real  as  the  region  which  weTnoTy  t 
conce  ^hach  we  cannot  form  the  faintest  ;ud1 

ments  of  a  conception. ' 

In  other  words,  must  we  not  abandon  hope  of 
bihty  of  disproof,  place  our  reliance  upon  faith? 


Let  It  be  admitted  frankly  that,  if  we  mean  by 
proof  the  kmd  of  inductive  demonstration  which 

once  fn^^T^P'^'"  °^  '"^'^^^  ^"^"^^'  ^«  "^"st 
reality  of  the  immortal  life.  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  has  done  all  that  can  be  done 
in  this  direction,  and  in  its  failure  must  be  seen  the 

i,  nn?  ^f  ^^f'^^^iH,  page  58.     See  further-"  This  doctrine 
s  not   only   destitute  of  scientific  suooort    bnt   T»L 
inconceivabilities."  support,   but   lands    us  in 

'  Ibid,  page.  62. 


198 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


failure  of  all  attempts  at  proof  by  induction  from 
direct  experience.     ''We  must  surrender  at  the 
start,'*  says  Dr.  George  A.   Gordon,   with   sure 
insight,  in  his  treatise  on  Immortality  and  the  New 
Theodicy,  "all  hope  of  demonstration.*'^    Nor,  if 
we  approach  this  problem  from  the  right  point  of 
view,  can  we  have  ever  expected  anything  else  to 
be  the  case.    The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  as  should  be 
evident  even  from  a  superficial  consideration  of 
the  problem,  and  as  must  have  become  ever  more 
and  more  evident  in  the  course  of  our  discussion, 
the  life  beyond   the  grave  simply  does  not   lie 
within  the  range  of  present  conscious  experience. 
Scientific  proof  of  the  inductive  order,  as  we  have 
seen,  has  to  do  with  what  can  be  experienced 
through  the  medium  of  our  bodily  senses.     The 
astronomer  can  prove  his  laws  of  planetary  motion 
because  he  can  see  the  stars,  watch  their  move- 
ments,   time  their   progress,    measure   their   dis- 
tances, and  mark  the  directions  of  their  motion. 
The  chemist  can  prove  his  laws  of  chemical  affinity, 
because  he  can  put  the  chemical  elements  in  a  test- 
tube  and  watch  with  his  own  eyes  the  resulting 
precipitation.    The  physicist  can  prove  his  laws  of 
heat  and  light  and  electricity,   because  he  can 
measure  the  volume  of  his  steam,  watch  the  re- 
fraction of  his  light  rays,  and  test  the  power  of  his 
electric  current.    All  of  these  phenomena,  as  has 
been  said,  form  a  part  of  conscious  experience  and 
therefore  are  susceptible  of  proof. 

*  See  Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy,  page  4. 


t 


The  Proof  of  Immortality        199 

The  immortal  life,  however,  is  by  the  very  nature 

present  hfe.    It  cannot  be  seen,  heard,  exolored 
and  therefore  its  real  existence  cknnot  L  p'S 

TnJl  P-T''''^.'^'^''°"*  foundation  in  experience  fsays 
John  F,ske  agam,  in  his  Life  Everlasting    Our  powers 
o   concept,on  are  narrowly  detem^ined  by  the  Hm 
of  our  expenence.  and  when  that  experience  has  Zll 
furnished  us  with  the  materials  for  framing  a  eonip 
tion,  we  simply  cannot  frame  it. '  ^ 

All  hope,  therefore,  of  proving  immortality  as  the 

by  actual  expenment  and  verification  in  the  reahn 
of  expenence,  must  be  forthwith  abandoned  t 
spite  of  our  psychical  investigators,  and  their  elab 
o^te^paraphen^alia  of  tables,  slates,  and  mediums, 
we  must  agree,  m  our  present  state  of  know 
edge  at  least,  with  the  dictum  of  Dr.  GoXn 
that  we  must  surrender  at  the  start  all  hooe  of 
demonstration. "  P^  °^ 

tiof  InV'^'S  "?^°^5  observation,  experimenta- 
S^saP  Is  fr  '^:  °"'^  ^'""'^  °^  P™°f  -t  our 
S  Th!     ,  "'  *^'  ^^  ^'^  ^^'^  to  f^ce  here 

rreasoninf  f'-'If "  .°'  '^^^"^  ^^^"^^  '"  ^hnd. 
unreasonmg  faith  as  the  ground  for  our  belief  in 

f>t  T^  i-  ,  '  '*  necessary  for  us  either  to  agree 
demonstration  of  immortality  is  impossible,  or 

'  See  Life  Everlasting,  page  6. 


200 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


imitate  the  classic  example  of  Tertullian,  who  was 
fond  of  saying  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that 
he  believed  it  because  it  was  impossible  of  belief? 
On  the  contrary,  is  there  not  some  middle  ground 
between  the  two  extremes  of  a  ''Q.  E.  D."  con- 
clusion upon  the  one  hand  and  a  groundless 
* 'credo"  upon  the  other?  Is  there  not  some  way 
of  finding  truth  which  has  all  the  convincing  power 
of  the  strict  inductive  method  of  the  chemist, 
physicist,  and  astronomer,  and  yet  lies  outside  of 
the  narrow  borders  of  actual  sense  impression? 


n 


One  has  only  to  familiarize  himself  with  the 
actual  practices  of  modem  research,  to  understand 
that  science,  in  its  present  methods  of  operation, 
employs  two  perfectly  distinct,  and  yet  equally 
convincing,  methods  of  proof.  The  method  of  the 
astronomer  who  gazes  at  the  wheeling  stars,  of  the 
chemist  who  watches  the  test-tube  precipitate, 
of  the  physicist  who  measures  with  nice  exactitude 
his  heat  and  light  and  electricity—the  method 
based  on  actual  sense  impression  and  experience 
which  fails  so  lamentably  to  meet  the  conditions 
imposed  by  the  problem  of  immortality— has 
already  been  described.  In  addition  to  this  method, 
there  is  to  be  noted  another  kind  of  scientific  proof 
which  may  be  said  to  demonstrate  reality  not 
by  direct  experience,  but  by  inference  from  that 
w^hich  is  experienced  to  that  which  cannot  in  the 


The  Proof  of  Immortality 


201 


nature  of  things  be  experienced.  This  kind  of 
proof,  the  proof  of  logical  inference,  as  it  is  called 
must  be  described  as  just  as  valid  and  just  as 
frequently  employed  by  modern  science,  if  we 
only  realized  it,  as  the  other  and  better  known  kind 
of  proof  of  which  we  have  spoken  at  length;  and  it 
IS  this  which  I  believe  makes  it  possible  for  us  to 
assert  that  the  truth  of  the  immortal  life  may  be 
established  by  logical  demonstration. 

For  example,  all  scientists  believe  today  that 
the  atmosphere  is  saturated  with  a  certain  material 
substance,  which  they  have  agreed  to  call  ^' ether  '' 
so  delicate  that  it  is  invisible  to  the  eye  and  im- 
perceptible  to  the  touch.     We  cannot  see  this 
ether,  nor  hear  it,  nor  touch  it;  it  is  beyond  the 
range  of  the  faculties  which  bring  to  us  the  content 
of  our  present  conscious  experience;  and  yet  we 
know  that  it  is  there.    And  why?    By  the  proof  of 
inference.    We  know  that  ether  is  present  in  the 
atmosphere,  for  the  impressive  reason  that  the 
phenomenon  of  light,  which  we  can  see  and  feel  in 
everyday  experience,  makes  its  existence  a  neces- 
sity.    We  know,  that  is,  by  actual  experiment, 
that  light  moves  in  waves  like  the  waves  of  the  sea. 
This  being  established,  the  question  at  once  arises 
—of  what  are  these  waves  composed?     Ocean 
waves  are  made  of  water,  sound  waves  of  air,  and 
hght  waves— of  what  ?    They  cannot  be  of  air,  or  of 
water,  or  of  any  form  of  matter  as  we  know  it,  for, 
to  our  senses,  the  atmosphere  seems  absolutely 
empty.    And  yet,  the  moving  waves  of  light  can- 


202 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


not  be  waves  of  nothing !    They  must  be  waves  of 
something— that  is,  of  some  material  substance. 
And  therefore  do  the  scientists  state,  because  of 
the  observed  motion  of  Hght,  that  they  know  that 
there  exists  in  the  atmosphere  a  substance,  which 
is  invisible,  inaudible,  intangible,  and  yet  as  real 
as  anything  that  can  be  seen  or  heard  or  touched ; 
and  this  substance  they  call  "ether."    From  cor- 
ner to  corner  of  this  vast  universe,  that  is,  wherever 
a  star  shines  or  light   darts,   there  broods  this 
circumambient  ether.    The  universe  is  soaked  in  it, 
as  a  sponge  is  soaked  in  water.    It  cannot  be  seen, 
touched,  heard,  or  smelled— it  is  simply  outside  the 
possible  range  of  sensory  experience — and  yet  we 
know,  by  the  proof  of  inference,  that  it  exists.    The 
phenomenon  of  light,  which  is  visible,  makes  the 
reality  of  this  ether,  which  is  invisible,  a  rational 
certainty.     No  sane  man  thinks  of  doubting  its 
existence  because  it  cannot  be  demonstrated  in 
experience,  any  more  than  he  would   think  of 
doubting  the  existence  of  the  sun. 

Again,  up  to  within  a  few  years  ago,  it  was 
believed  by  the  chemists  of  the  day,  that  matter 
could  be  ultimately  analysed  into  some  seventy 
odd  elements  which  they  could  see  and  feel,  and 
with  which  they  could  experiment— elements,  that 
is,  the  existence  of  which  they  could  demonstrate 
by  the  facts  of  actual  experience.  Within  the  last 
few  years,  however,  it  has  been  discovered,  by 
means  of  certain  experiments  with  heated  gases, 
that  further  analysis  is  necessary;  that  these  ele- 


The  Proof  of  Immortality         203 

ments,  in  other  words,  are  themselves  resolvable 
into    certain  other  elements  still  more   basic  in 
character.     It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  explain 
in  this  place  the  astonishing  details  of  the  new 
chemical  investigations  of  our  time.     Sufficient  is 
it  to  point  out,  that  modern  chemists  have  dis- 
covered the  existence  of  one  class  of  particles  which 
they  call  ions,  and  another  class  which  they  call 
corpuscles;  and  that  they  have  established  the 
reaHty  of  these  objects,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that, 
like  ether,  they  are  invisible  and  intangible,  and 
therefore  utterly  beyond  the  range  even  of  micro- 
scopic vision.    These  ions  and  corpuscles  are  un- 
seen, and  yet  the  chemists  assert  that  they  know 
that    they  exist.      And    they  defend   this   asser- 
tion, with  the  utmost  assurance,  on  the  inferential 
ground  that,  if  these  elements  did  not  exist,  cer- 
tain properties  of  known  gases  and  substances, 
which  are  constantly   under  direct  observation, 
were  otherwise  impossible.    They  explain,  for  in- 
stance, that  a  certain  gas  when  heated,  is  dis- 
covered to  possess  the  quality  of  conductivity; 
they  explain  that  this  quahty  could  not  appear  if 
the  gas  were  not  composed  of  invisible  corpuscles; 
and  therefore  they  say.  We  know  that  the  cor- 
puscles must  be  really  there,  even  though  we  can 
never  hope  to  see  them.    That  which  lies  beyond 
the  range  of  possible  experience,  that  is,  we  know 
to  be  a  reality  by  necessary  inference  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown,  from  the  visible  to  the 
invisible.     And   so  absolutely   is   this  inference 


I 


'A 


204 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


accepted  as  the  equivalent  of  demonstration  that 
no  competent  chemist  would  think  today  of 
doubting  the  real  existence  of  ions  and  corpuscles, 
any  more  than  he  would  think  of  doubting  the 
reality  of  his  own  life. ' 

Again,  as  still  another  illustration,  there  is  no 
sane  man  today  who  does  not  accept  as  proved 
the  truth  of  the  uniformity  of  nature ;  and  yet  this 
truth,  if  established  at  all,  is  estabhshed  by  infer- 
ence.    Our  experience  would  have  to  be  as  infinite 
as  the  cosmos  and  as  eternal  as  time,  in  order  to 
enable  us  to  establish  this  doctrine  by  inductive 
demonstration.    Suns  rise  and  set,  moons  wax  and 
wane,  tides  ebb  and  flow,  seasons  come  and  pass 
away,  day  and  night  follow  each  other  in  unbroken 
succession,  and  we  conclude  that  this  has  been  the 
unvarying  order  from  the  beginning  and  that  it 
will  continue  to  be  the  unvarying  order  to  the  end. 
And  we  declare  confidently  that  this  is  proved— 
although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  and  cannot 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  be  demonstrated  in 
actual  experience— because  human  experience  so 
far  as  it  goes  makes  the  reality  of  this  tremend- 
ous conception  necessary  to  the  integrity  of  our 
thought.    This  universe  is  simply  not  understand- 
able unless  this  great  idea  of  the  uniformity  of 

'  Significant  inductive  confirmation  of  this  method  of  proof  is 
seen  in  the  recent  experiments  of  projecting  the  supposititious 
ions  and  corpuscles  against  a  sensitive  screen.  Their  existence 
is  thus  revealed  in  the  same  way  that  an  invisible  bullet  is  revealed 
by  a  splash  as  it  falls  into  a  distant  body  of  water,  or  by  a  cloud  of 
dust  as  it  hits  a  distant  spot  of  earth. 


The  Proof  of  Immortality         205 

nature  is  accepted  as  everlastingly  and  universally 
true.  It  IS  only  an  inference,  unsupported  by  the 
demonstration  of  experience,  and  yet  the  scientific 
world  agrees  to  regard  it  as  established 

And  so  we  might  go  on,  giving  innumerable 
illustrations  of  what  is    meant  by  the  proof  of 
inference  as  contrasted  with  the  proof  of  experi- 
ence; but  enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  make 
clear  the  validity  of  this  proof  of  inference  as  a 
basis  of   established    truth.     In  each    case,    we 
have  seen  that  certain  facts  known  in  experience 
such  as  the  movement  of  light  in  waves,  or  the 
conductivity  of  a  heated  gas,  or  the  constantly 
recurring  phenomena  of  day  and  night,  have  in- 
volved of  necessity  the  reality  of  certain  other 
facts  unknown,  and,  in  the  nature  of  things,  un- 
knowable, in  experience;  and  the  scientists  agree 
to  accept  these  unknown  and  unknowable  facts  as 
proved  by  the  method  of  logical  inference.    And  it 
is  these  truths  of  inference,  it  should  be  added 
and  not  at  all  the  truths  of  actual  experience,' 
which  constitute  the  very  condition  of  all  scientific 
progress.     Were  the  scientist  obliged  to  restrict 
his  knowledge  to  the  one  proof  of  experience  and 
accept  nothing  as  real  which  he  had  not  seen  or 
touched   or   heard   or   measured   or   weighed   or 
tested,  then  would  scientific  achievement  be  at  an 
end.    Then  would  the  ether  in  the  atmosphere  be 
utterly  unknown,  and  the  phenomenon  of  light 
an  inexphcable  mystery.     Then  would  ions  and 
corpuscles   remain   hidden   in   darkness  and   the 


I 


206 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


miracles  of  modem  chemistry  be  impossible. 
Then  would  this  universe  be  interpreted  as  a 
realm  of  confusion,  accident,  chaos;  and  the  great 
truth  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  as  an  idle 
speculation.  Then  would  we  know  nothing  be- 
yond the  infinitesimal  area  which  is  covered  by  the 
seeing  of  our  eyes  and  the  hearing  of  our  ears ! 

But  science,  at  least  in  modern  times,  has  never 
been  content  to  bind  itself  by  the  fetters  of  this 
restriction.      On    the   contrary,    science   has   ad- 
vanced and  truth  has  been  established  not  by  what 
men  have  actually  proved  through  the  medium 
of  physical  experience,  but  by  what  they  have 
proved  by  inference,  logic,  faith.     Ever  have  men 
launched  boldly  out  into  the  unknown  mysteries 
of  time  and  space  and  matter.     From  the  Httle 
which  they  have  been  able  to  experience,  they 
have  advanced  to  the  great  realities  which  have 
transcended  experience.     They  have  based  their 
investigations  upon  the  supposition  that  this  uni- 
verse is  a  harmony  in  all  of  its  parts,  and  have 
agreed  that,  if  the  great  things  of  which  we  dream, 
fit^  and  supplement  and  harmonize  with  the  little 
things  which  we  actually  know  in  our  limited  range 
of  experience,   then  we  have  a  right— a  logical 
right— to  accept  these  dreams  as  true.    The  ether 
in  the  atmosphere  is  a  dream,  the  existence  of  the 
ions  and  corpuscles  of  the  chemist  was  a  dream 
until  the  shadows  on  the  screen  gave  forth  their 
revelations,  the  uniformity  of  nature  must  ever  be 
a  dream  so  long  as  man  can  compass  only  in 


1 


■f 


The  Proof  of  Immortality         207 

imagination  the  vast  reaches  of  time  and  spac^ 
but  these  dreams  fit  the  facts  which  we  know  in 
experience,  and  therefore  may  rightly  be  regarded 
as  reahties     The  words  of  R.  K.  Duncan,  late 
professor  of  chemistry  in  the  University  of  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson,  in  his  book  entitled,  The  New 
Knowledge,  in  interpretation  of  the  wonders  of  the 
new  chemistry  of  our  time,  are  impressive.     He 
tells  of  the  marvellous   discoveries  of   Thomson 
Becquerel,   Curie,    Ramsay,    and    Crookes-dis- 
covenes  regarding  the  properties   and  combina- 
tion of  atoms  and  molecules,  which  almost  pass 
reasonable  belief-and  he  concludes  his  treatise 
by  asking  if  these  speculations  are  true.     And  he 
answers  by  the  proof  of  inference.    These  are  his 
words: 

If  we  have  a  beautiful  building  of  systemized  per- 
ceptions and  conceptions  all  dovetailing  into  one 
another  into  the  complete  expression  of  an  idea,  we  say 
that  the  Idea  is  true  (even  though  it  passes  all  demon- 
stration in  experience),  because  we  see  in  it  a  perfect 
harmony  and  this  harmony  pleases  us  and  gives  us  a 
feeling  of  the  recognition  of  the  truth.  .  .  It  is  an 
act  of  pure  faith  .  .  but  it  is  (this  faith  which  is) 
bred  in  the  very  bone  of  science. ' 

III 

Such  is  the  validity  of  the  proof  of  inference- 
that  proof  which  demonstrates  reahty  not  by  di- 

o  J  ^r  ^*!.^?  Knowledge,  page  255.     The  entire  concluding 
'edge,     should  be  read  in  this  connection. 


mmiSk 


208 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


rect  experience  of  visitation  or  communication, 
but  by  logical  deduction  from  that  which  is  ex- 
perienced   to   that  which  is   not,   or   cannot   be, 
experienced— that   proof   upon   which   alone   the 
greatest  scientific  discoveries  of  the  last  one  hund- 
red years  or  more  repose,  and  which  of  itself  alone 
makes  possible  all  progressive,  accumulating  know- 
ledge.   And  right  here  do  I  believe  that  we  find 
that  open  road   to  the  middle  ground  between 
agnosticism  upon  the  one  hand  and  blind  credulity 
upon  the  other,  for  which  we  have  been  looking. 
Right  here  is  our  proof  of  immortality !    For  what 
have   we   been   doing,   in   our   discussion   of   the 
intimations  of  immortality  and  our  consideration 
of  the  bearing  of  evolution  upon  the  problem,  but 
revealing  facts  which  are  themselves  unexplain- 
able   except   upon   the   hypothesis   of   continued 
existence,  as  the  phenomena  of  light  waves,  for  ex- 
ample, are  unexplainable  except  upon  the  hypothe- 
sis of  ether?    What  is  all  that  we  have  affirmed 
up  to  the  present  point  of  our  argument  but  the 
constituent  parts  of  a  scientific  demonstration  of 
our  thesis? 

Here,  before  our  face  and  eyes,  are  the  great 
facts  of  existence,  which  are  so  vital  a  part  of  our 
experience.  Here  is  human  life  with  its  thoughts 
and  aspirations  and  ideals,  its  struggles  and  battles 
and  achievements,  its  disappointments  and  suffer- 
ings and  agonies.  Here  is  the  biological  story  of 
the  age-long  evolution  of  the  race  from  the  first 
faint  germ  of  protoplasmic  life  on  the  one  side  to 


r  1 

I: 


The  Proof  of  Immortality        209 

•'Plato's  brain  and  the  good  Christ's  heart"  upon 
the  other-that  story  so  full  of  the  struggle  of  the 
animal  with  the  material,  of  the  human  with  the 
animal,  of  the  divine  with  the  human-that  story 
of  the  slow  rise  from  flesh  into  spirit,  from  body 
into  soul,  from  the  brute  into  the  man,  from  the 
man  into  the  conscious  son  of  the  living  God' 
Here  also  is  the  historical  story  of  the  age-long 
struggle  of  the  race  for  social  prosperity,  happiness 
and  peace;  the  struggle  of  race  against  race    of 
people  against  people,  of  nation  against  nation 
tor  supremacy  in  commerce,  government,  and  war- 
that  story  so  aglow  with  the  splendour  of  brave 
words   spoken   and    heroic   deeds   performed-so 
sanctified  by  the  holy  names  of  seers  and  sages  of 
saints  and  prophets,  of  martyrs  and  heroes-so 
nobly  stained  by  the  tears  of  anguished  love  and 
the  blood-drops  of  courageous  sacrifice.     Here  is 
the  story  of  human  achievement  in  the  realms  of 
art,  literature,  and  music;  the  evidence  in  the  form 
of  paintings,  poems,  and  symphonies  of  themightv 
thoughts  that  have  surged  in  human  brains  and  the 
overwhelming  emotions  that  have  throbbed  in 
human  hearts^    Here,  above  all  else,  are  the  stories 
of  the  individual  lives  of  men,  women,  and  little 
children-the  stories  of  joy  and  sorrow,  of  defeat 
and   victory,   of  life  and   death;   stories   simple 
humble,   trivial,   hidden  away  behind   the  walls 
ot  quiet,  unknown  homes,  and  yet  stories  which 
constitute  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  fibre  of 
human  living. 


210 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Here  in  a  word  are  the  facts  of  human  life  as  we 
know  these  facts  in  experience ;  and  in  the  light  of 
these  facts,  can  we  not  go  so  far  as  to  affirm  that, 
just  as  the  facts  of  light  proved  the  reality  of  the 
invisible  "ether, "  just  as  the  facts  of  a  heated  gas 
proved  the  reality  of  ions  and  corpuscles,  just  as 
the  facts  of  ordered  experience  proved  the  uni- 
versality of  law,  so  these  facts  of  human  life  prove 
the  reality  of  the  invisible  life  beyond  the  grave? 
The  facts  are  alone  understandable  on  the  supposi- 
tion of  the  reaHty  of  immortality.    The  only  ex- 
planation of  what  lies  beyond  the  grave  that 
harmonizes,  "fits  in, "  with  human  life  as  we  know 
it  here  and  now,  to  use  the  test  of  truth  just  de- 
fined by  Professor  Duncan,  is  the  explanation  that 
God  created  man  to  be  immortal. ' '    Immortality, 
that  is,  like  the  greatest,  deepest,  and  highest  truths 
of  modem  science,  is  established  by  the  proof  of 
inference. 

We  know,  say   the  scientists,  that   the  ether 
m  the  atmosphere  is  a  reality,  even  though  it  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  our  experience,  because  the 
facts   of   light   cannot   be   explained   without   it. 
So  also,  to  my  mind,  do  we  know  that  the  immor- 
tal life  is  a  reality,  even  though,  like  the  ether. 
It  is  beyond  the  reach  of  our  conscious  experience,' 
because  the  facts  of  human  life  cannot  be  ex- 
plained without  it.    We  know,  say  the  chemists, 
that  the  invisible  ions  and  corpuscles  are  real, 
because  the  facts  of  the  visible  elements  cannot  be 
understood  without  them.     So  also  do  we  know 


The  Proof  of  Immortality 


211 


that  the  invisible  life  beyond  the  grave  is  real 
because  the  facts  of  this  visible  life  cannot  be 
understood  without  it.    We  know,  say  the  scien- 
tists,  that   nature   is   not   chaotic   but   uniform 
through  all  time  and  space,  because  all  the  known 
tacts  of  human  experience  demand  that  hypothesis 
for  their  rational  explanation.    So  also  do  we  know 
that  we  are  immortal  because  all  the  known  fact- 
of  human  life  demand  that  hypothesis  for  their 
satisfactory  explanation.    The  scientist,  although 
he  does  not  know  in  actual  experience,  has  a  right 
to   accept   as  proved   the    reality  of   ether,   the 
actuality  of  ions  and  corpuscles,  and  the  truth  of 
the  uniformity  of  nature.    And  in  exactly  the  same 
way,  the  theologian,  although  he  does  not  know  in 
actual  experience,  has  a  right  to  accept  as  proved 
the  reality  of  the  conception  of  immortality.    All 
of  these  conceptions,  scientific  and  theological 
rest  upon  the  same  basis  of  inference  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown,  and  all  must  stand  or  fall 
together     When  Professor  Duncan  establishes  the 
reality  of  the  new  chemical  wonders  of  our  time 
by  stating  that  these  ideas  are  true  because  they 
constitute   a   perfect   harmony   in   our   rational 
thought,  he  has  given  a  test  of  truth  which  applies 
not  only  in  the  realm  of  science  but  also  in  the 
realm  of  metaphysics  and  theology;  and  he  has 
proved    the    essential    truth    not    only    of    the 
matenal  speculations  of  the  chemists,  who  have 
dreamed    of    ions   and    corpuscles,   but  also   of 
the  spiritual  speculations  of  the  poets,  seers,  and 


i 


212 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


prophets,  who  have  dreamed  of  the  life  that  is 
eternal. 


IV 


This  now  is  what  is  meant  by  the  proof  of  im- 
mortality—a  proof  which  is  as  incontrovertible  as 
any  of  those  proofs  upon  which  rest  the  vast  super- 
structure of  modem  science  and  which  nobody 
thinks  of  questioning— and  this  is  what  is  meant 
by  ail  who  accept  the  doctrine  of  immortahty  as  a 
demonstrated  reality.     It  is  this  which  explains 
Dr.  Gordon's  apparently  contradictory  position, 
when  he  opens  his  book  on  Immortality  and  the 
iVew  Theodicy  with  the  categorical  statement  that 
we  "must  surrender  at  the  outset  all  hope  of 
demonstration,"  and  closes  it  with  the  equally 
categorical   affirmation    that    the   human   reason 
registers  its  decree  in  favour  of  the  immortality  of 
man.    It  is  this  which  explains  John  Fiske's  pecu- 
liar attitude.    He  states  emphatically,  in  his  Life 
Everlasting,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  that  the  concep- 
tion of  immortality  is  unsupported  by  proof  and  is 
utterly  inconceivable.     And  yet  he  states,  with 
even  greater  emphasis,  in  his  Destiny  of  Man,  his 
personal  confession  already  quoted,  "I  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  a  supreme  act  of 
faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God's  work."    It  is 
this  conception  of  proof  which  James  Martineau 
had  in  mind  when  he  made  that  marvellously 
illuminating  statement  that  we  do  not  believe  in 


The  Proof  of  Immortah'ty        213 

'  immortality  because  it  can  be  demonstrated  in 
expenence,  but  are  always  trying  to  demonstrate 
t  because  we  must  believe  it.  The  conception  of 
.mmortahty  is  true,  in  the  same  way  that'lu  the 
greater  conceptions  of  modern  science  are  true^^ 
because  the  integrity  of  the  human  mind,  and  the 
ra^onahjy  of  human  experience,  make  necessal^^ 

veS  !!/''*  """"f  ^°'  ^'""'""  ^""'^^^  that  those 
very  persons  who  make  the  greatest  pretensions 
to  bemg  guided  by  their  reason  and  who  pretend 
to  place  the  most  implicit  reliance  upon  the 
methods  of  science,  are  oftentimes  the  very  ones 
who  fail  to  see  that  this  reason,  by  which  tSy  are 
guided  and  these  scientific  methods,  of  whichLy 

strSd  rTT'f  ^''  '°  ^'"'"^rtaUty  as  a  demon- 
strated reahty?  s  it  too  much  to  say,  that  the 
time  has  gone  by  for  speaking  of  the  eternal  life  as 
a  hope,  a  fai  h,  a  probability,  a  dream  of  the  poets 
a  vision  of  the  prophets.^  Has  not  the  timeUme 
for  dec  anng  that  the  eternal  life  is  a  demonstrated 

SS'ffi       ?  "°i!'  *"  ''  '^^*  "^^  be  unhesitat- 
ingly affirmed-that  if  immortality  is  nothing  but 

a  hope,  a  probability,  a  dream,  then  is  the  vasi  and 

splendid  structure  of  modern  science,  which  no 

sane  man  thinks  of  questioning,  nothing  but  a 

hope    a  probability,  a  dream.     The  two  things 

stand  or  fall  together.    It  is  all,  or  none ' 

Again  I  resort  to  parable  for  the  clinching  of  my 

argument!    A  few  years  ago,  before  the  chemical 

section  of  the  British  Association,  a  notable  address 


214 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


was  deHvered  by  Professor  Ramsay,  the  world- 
famous  scientist.  He  opened  his  speech  upon  this 
particular  occasion  with  these  words : 

The  subject  of  my  remarks  today  is  a  new  gas  I 
shaU  describe  to  you  later  its  peculiar  properties, 
but  It  would  be  unfair  not  to  put  you  at  once  into 
possession  of  the  knowledge  of  its  most  remarkable 
property,  which  is  this—it  has  not  yet  been  discovered. 

Is  not  this  an  exact  parallel  of  our  position? 
The  immortal  life  has  not  been  discovered !  But 
we  know,  even  as  Professor  Ramsay  knew  of  his 
wonderful  gas,  and  by  exactly  the  same  process  of 
demonstration,  that  it  exists! 


1 

I 


CHAPTER  VII 

CONDITIONAL  IMMORTALITY 

created  thin,  „,„  continue  whose  con     lal'lX^S 
to  the  meaning  of  the  world,  and  so  loJZ  VaT 

course      Thj  ^^         tfan^'torj- phase  of  the  world's 

surely  know  not  the  merits  whirh  m=       • 

being  a  cliim  ^n  „t        '"«"ts  which  may  give  to  one 

cu    othet  o^  °   rTI^'T'^x^  ''^  ""^'^'^  '^•h'<=h  would 

JT  is  altogether  probable  that,  in  our  search  for  a 
1     demonstration  of  the  reality  of  the  immortal 

i^rthttoTf  n  ^''' "  ^^^^^-^  "^ « 

helht.  to  T  I  ''''"'"•  ^'  '^^'^  '^^  to  be 
heights  to  which  man  cannot  climb  or  soar  anH 

seTmt be"'f  '^  ^^""°*  ^'"^'  -  ^^^  --d 
enter  Of  course  it  is  possible  that  he  may  some 
day  tear  aside  the  veil  that  hides  the  future  frm 

omeT">  'T  ''  ''  ''  P°^^^b'^  that  he  may 
to  hlJ  !r^°P  ""  instrument  delicate  enough 
to  handle  and  measure  ether,  or  an  atmosphere 
light  enough  to  isolate  and  make  visible  Professor 

215 


"'^W^^^^^'^^^^m!^  " 


2l6 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Ramsay's  peculiar  gas.     So  also  is  it  not  incon- 
ceivable that  Omar  Khayyam's  exclamation- 
Strange,  is  it  not?  that  of  the  myriads  who 
Before  us  passed  the  door  of  Darkness  through 

Not  one  returns  to  tell  us  of  the  road, 
Which  to  discover  we  must  travel  too — 

may  some  day  be  made  ridiculous  by  the  actual 
return    of    some    "traveller"    from    the    eternal 
*' bourne,"  bearing  credentials  that  are  beyond 
dispute.     August    Comte's    pathetic    experience 
with  spectrum  analysis  is  a  classic  illustration  of 
the  folly  of  attempting  to  place  impassable  bar- 
riers about  the  field  of  human  achievement.    But  it 
is  certainly  improbable,  at  the  very  least,  that  any 
one  of  these  things  should  happen,  either  now  or 
in  the  distant  future.     Nor  do  I  see  any  reason 
why   we   should   wish   for   such   consummations. 
The  frantic  endeavours  of  some  of  our  psychical 
researchers  seem  almost  as  ridiculous  as  the  stupid 
endeavours  of  Dr.  Watson  to  find  evidence,  after 
Sheriock  Holmes  had  discovered  and  catalogued 
the  facts  which  made  everything  as  clear  as  day 
to  his  discerning  mind !     Why  ask  for  better  proof 
of  immortahty  than  this  which  is  in  our  posses- 
sion at  this  present  moment.    The  physicist  does 
not  let  his  experiments  with  light  wait  upon  the 
visuaHzing  of  his  postulated  ether.     The  chemist 
does  not  hamper  his  activity  with  doubts  as  to 
the  existence  of  ions  and  corpuscles.     No  one  of  us 
worries  at  night  as  to  whether  the  sun  will  rise 


vflSw^f 


Conditional  Immortality  217 

'  tomorrow  as  it  has  been  doing  every  morning 
hitherto  for  unnumbered  millions  of  years  We 
simply  take  these  things  for  granted,  although  no 
one  of  them  is  verified  in  certain  experience  and 

for  doinf  tT  '•     ^"' J^  '^^^  '""'^  ^-d  --on 
for  doing  the  same  thmg  with  this  question  of 

the  life  to  come.     To  ask  for  further  evidence  than 

would  thmk  It  absurd  to  demand.  It  is  simply 
irrational  to  expect  that  belief  shall  wait  upon  fina^ 
experience.  What  is  reason,  but  the  facuhy 
which  lays  hold  on  such  facts  as  can  actually  be 

tToStfieM '  h"'  '!:°"^  "^  *^^^  '^^^-  -Po- 
tions in  fields  beyond  our  ken  ?    What  is  evidence, 

but  .he  divming-rod  which  points  unerringly  to 
thmgs  not  seen.P"  Every  highest  truth  Is  an 
inference;  every  deepest  principle  a  rational  hy- 
po hesis;  every  noblest  vision  an  affirmation  of 
fa  h  _  If  we  need  more  knowledge  here  before 
belief  IS  possible,  we  need  more  knowledge  everv- 
where,  and  all  the  great  fabric  of  our  sciences  and 
philosophies  comes  tumbling  to  the  ground  To 
accep  the  doctrine  of  immortahty  is  not  to  believe 

Not  the  believer,  but  the  doubter  and  denier,  is  the 
man  who  is  guilty  of  unreason. 


We  may  safely  assume,  therefore,  as  reasonable 
oeings,  that  the  immortal  lifo  is  a  reality  This 
conclusion,  reassuring  as  it  is,  however,  comes  far 


2l8 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


from  bringing  us  to  the  end  of  our  inquiry.  At 
this  point,  for  example,  there  arises  the  highly 
important  question  as  to  whether  immortaHty  is 
universal.  Is  it  a  reality  for  all  men  bom  into 
the  worid,  without  discrimination,  or  for  only 
a  selected  few?  Is  it  a  natural  or  an  acquired 
characteristic?  Is  it  an  inheritance  upon  which 
men  enter,  or  a  prize  which  they  are  challenged 
to  win?  In  short,  to  use  the  technical  phrases 
of  our  day,  is  the  immortal  Hfe  to  be  regarded  as 
absolute  or  conditional? 

In  its  present  definite  form,  at  least,  this  ques- 
tion is  of  strictly  modern  origin.  In  the  past, 
however,  there  has  always  been  a  more  or  less 
close  approximation  to  the  conception  of  a  condi- 
tional immortality. 

Thus  in  the  old  pagan  days,  we  have  what  may 
be  described  as  the  aristocratic  view  of  the  immor- 
tal life.     According  to  this  idea,  immortality,  as 
a  state  of  continued  and  glorified  existence,  was 
the  happy  fate  reserved  for  kings  and  heroes,  and 
those  immediately  associated  with  them.     All  the 
rest  of  mankind  constituted  an   inconglomerate 
mass  of  beings  who  were  consigned  to  a  great  pit 
beneath  the  earth,  where  they  were  not  actually 
annihilated,  but  doomed  to  a  condition  so  close  to 
extinction  that  they  could  hardly  be  said  to  live  at 
all.     Certainly  there  was  nothing  in  their  exist- 
ence which  even  remotely  suggests  what  we  now 
mean  by  immortality.     In  some  places,  to  be  sure, 
as  in  ancient  Israel,  even  'Hhe  chief  ones  of  the 


Conditional  Immortality 


219 

earth"  were  made  to  share  this  hapless  lot,  as 

-  ness  the  stupendous  scene  in  iLk',  where 

all  the  kings  of  the  nations"  are  made  to  rise 

aswp?"     n.!i    ^'^'^  *^°u  also  become  as  weak 

comeJ  to         .      '"°'"'  ^'■'^'^^"*  '^'^  '« that  which 
comes  to  us  from  ancient  Greece,  wherein  the 

great  ones,  especially  the  blamele  s  heroes  are 
sent  to  the  so-called  Islands  of  the  Blest,  wher^  th" 
eternal  favours  of  the  gods  are  showered  upon 
them  hke'< the  gentle  dew  from  heaven,"  and  aS 
th  rest  of  mankind,  including  even  such  unfortu- 
nate chieftams  as  Agamemnon  and  Achilles  are 
condemned  to  this  miserable  half-existence  in  the 
underworld.     The  most  vivid  picture  which  has 

that  contamed  m  the  eleventh  book  of  Homer's 
OfW,  where  is  described  the  visit  of  Ulysses  to 
the  dark  abode  of  Hades.     Here  do  we  see  the 

aZut  h  °H,  '^'^  ^"'  ^'"P*^  ^^^^-'  --"-5 

that  fall        r  '"'  "'°^^^^"*'  "'^'  the  leaves 
that  fa  1  m  the  autumn,  trembling  in  the  unknown 

winds  from  the  vast  plains  of  the  other  world  " 

th^7  T''  f  ^  ^'*  ^'^  '"  ^^1°^^  to  extinction, 
that  when  the  wandering  Ithacan  sacrifices  his 
sheep  upon  the  altars,  the  "airy  shoals  of  visionary 
ghosts  l«,p  at  the  "streaming  blood"  that  they 
may   drink   some   life   into   their  empty   veins 

'  Isaiah  xiv:  9-10. 


220 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Talk  not  of  seeking  in  this  dolorous  gloom, 
Nor  think  vain  words  ...  can  ease  my  doom. 
Rather  I  choose  laboriously  to  bear 
A  weight  of  woes,  and  breathe  the  vital  air, 
A  slave  to  some  poor  hind  that  toils  for  bread. 
Than  reign  the  sceptred  monarch  of  the  dead.' 

A  similar  picture  is  given  us  by  Mr.  Stephen 

Phillips  in  the  second  act  of  his  drama,  Ulysses. 

It  IS  with  a  true  understanding  of  the  Grecian  myth 

that  he  represents  his  hero  as  always  referring 

to  the  departed  as  "the  dead!  the  dead!"— and 

these  in  turn  as  crying  enviously  unto  him,  "  Thou, 

thou,  hast  life  in  thee,  and  flesh  and  blood'"' 

Here   surely   is   no  immortality!    This  boon  is 

reserved  only  for  the  favoured  few  who  journey 

westward  to  the  happy  isles ! 

Later  on,  in  the  days  of  the  Mysteries,  this 
peculiar  aristocratic  conception  of  a  conditional 
immortality  was  superseded  by  a  division  between 
"the  sheep  and  the  goats"  on  the  basis  of  ethical 
distmction.     For   the   full   development   of   this 
idea,  however,  we  must  turn  to  later  Israel,  when 
the  Persian  doctrines  of  the  future  had  mastered 
the  Hebrew  mind,  or,  still  better,  to  the  matured 
theological  dogmas  of  Catholic  and   Protestant 
Christianity.     Immortality,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word,  is  here  confined  to  those  who  are  able 
to  attain  to  certain  exalted  standards  of  moral 
worth    or   meet    certain    rigorous   conditions    of 
spiritual  salvation.     Sometinies  it  is  asserted  that 
■  Alexander  Pope's  translation. 


Conditional  Immortality 


221 


P 


1 


eternal  life  is  conferred  upon  all  who  have  clean 
hands  and  pure  hearts,  and  manifest  love  for  their 
fellow-men.     Such  seems  to  be  the  idea  of  the 
Psalmist    when    he    describes    those    "who   shall 
ascend  into  the  hill  of  the  Lord,"  and  "stand  in 
his  holy  place";-  and  the  idea  of  Jesus,  also,  w^hen 
he  describes  the  Judgment  Scene,  and  still  further 
when  he  answers  the  inquiry  of  the  rich  young 
man ^ as  to  what  he  shall  "do  to  inherit  etema! 
Me.         More  often,  immortality  is  to  be  won  only 
by  open  repentance  for  past  sins,  and  a  new  birth  of 
consecration  to  the  divine  ideals.     In  its  finest 
flowenng,   as   in    the   Eleusinian   mysteries,   for 

ZZ"  '  ri^'P'^'""^  '"  '""^  'highly  elaborated 
systems  of  Christendom,  this  idea  develops  into 
mtricate  systems  of  purification  and  atonement 
with  the  inimortal  life  as  a  goal  upon  a  prolonged 
way  of  salvation. "  But  whatever  the  particular 
moral  or  spiritual  conditions  imposed,  the  practi- 
cal outcome  is  always  the  same.     Those  who  are  so 

adm-L'd  '??^''  '°  ""'''  ''''''  ^°"ditions,  are 
admitted  into  heaven,  which  is  always  described 

as  a  place  of  ineffable  splendour  and  unending 
bh^  All  the  rest  of  mankind-and  this  includes 
of  course  the  vast  majority  who  are  altogether 
outside  the  magic  charm  of  the  true  salvation- 
are  doomed  to  endless  torment  in  the  nether  world. 
In  the  Dtnne  Comedy  of  Dante,  with  its  highly 

as  the  abode  of  the  lost,  and  the  lofty  pinnacles  of 

■  See  Psaln.  xxivrj.  .gee  Matthew  xxv:3r,  and  xix:  ,6. 


222 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Paradiso  at  the  other  end  as  the  home  of  the  angels 
and  the  saints,  and  in  between  the  ridges  of  Piirga- 
torio  where  toil  and  suffer  those  who  are  being 
disciplined  for  the  blessed  life  of  heaven,  we  have 
what  must  be  described  as  the  final  statement 
of  this  particular  conception  of  the  future.  Of 
course,  in  so  far  as  the  mere  fact  of  continued 
existence  is  concerned,  those  who  agonize  in  the 
depths  of  hell  are  just  as  much  immortal  as  those 
who  revel  in  the  joys  of  heaven.  Not  even  in 
the  case  of  Dante's  vilest  sinners — the  infamous 
traitors  to  their  lords  and  benefactors,  Lucifer, 
Judas,  Brutus  and  Cassius,  who  are  held  in  the 
monstrous  bond  of  the  lowest  circle  of  Inferno — 
is  there  even  a  suggestion  of  annihilation!  But 
certainly  in  such  continued  existence  as  this,  there 
is  nothing  of  what  we  mean  by  immortality.  To 
be  doomed  to  serve  as  unconsumed  fuel  for  the 
fires  of  hell  is  hardly  life  eternal.'  In  this  case, 
exactly  as  in  that  of  paganism,  immortality  strictly 
speaking  is  the  exclusive  possession  of  those  who 
have  met  the  spiritual  conditions  of  salvation. 
That  is  to  say,  we  have  in  both  cases  a  frankly 
conditional  interpretation  of  immortality.  The 
only  change  here  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  gain 
which  is  registered  by  the  substitution  of  a  moral 
for  a  purely  social  basis  of  distinction,  in  the  admis- 
sion of  the  good  rather  than  the  great  to  heaven ! 

'  See  William  James's  Human  Immortality,  page  32.  "The 
immortals— I  speak  of  heaven  exclusively,  for  an  immortality  of 
torment  need  not  now  concern  us. " 


Conditional  Immortality 


223 


II 


nefd  do'rr'  "°^:  7^^*  -«  ^°  familiar  that  I 
need  do  little  more  than  merely  indicate  them  all 

hafe  itr  "  'T  °'  ^  ^°"^^"°-^  ---ta'lit 
Jiave  long  smce  been  outgrown 

tl..??.'  '"  *'  ^''*  P^^'^"'  ''  ''  ^^'dent,  is  it  not 
that   these  materialistic  conceptions  of  the   fu- 
ture world,  with  their  pits  and  flames  and  ridges 
and  mountam-tops,  have  no  place  whatsoever  fn 

tantastic-the  obvious  creation  of  man's  fertile 
and  ingenious  imagination!     Does  hell,  for  exam 
pie,  as  pictured  by  Zoroaster,  Tertullikn?  Au„u^. 

is  It  not  a  thousand  times  easier  to  believe  that 

Sinbad  sailed  his  seven  voyages,  that  Jason  found 

the  golden  fleece,  that  ^neas  builded  Rome  than 

hat  the  Hades  of  the  Greeks,  the  GehennT;f  tS 

picture  of  the  Inferno,  and  yet  we  take  but  a 
smg^  step  with  him  and  Virgil  beyond  the  thrth- 

ttl   ..       "'*f  '■"^'"^'  ^^^"  ^^  know  that  all 
these  things  are  but 

•  •  .  the  children  of  an  idle  brain 
Begot  of  nothing  but  vain  fantasy. 

era^r  'T'^'f  "''""  ""^   ^"'^'^  '^^^  ^'^^^^d- 
eration  as  this,  however,  are  the  changed  ideas 


224 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


which  have  made  intolerable  this  eternal  division 
of  mankind  into  the  two  classes  of  the  saved  and 
lost.     The  aristocratic  view  of  immortality,  so 
characteristic  of  the  pagan  world,  was  of  course 
overthrown  once  for  all  by  the  sweeping  democracy 
of  the  Christian  gospel.    Jesus  calling  fishermen 
and  publicans  to  his  band  of  disciples— Paul  de- 
scribing the  slave  Onesimusas  his  "son"  and  be- 
seeching the  master.  Philemon,  to  receive  back  his 
bondman  "not  now  as  a  servant,  but  above  a  ser- 
vant, a  brother  beloved"— St.  Ambrose  refusing 
Theodosius  the  Great  admission  to  his  church  until 
the  Emperor  has  repented  and  atoned  for  his  sins— 
St.  Francis  crowning  with  his  redemptive  love  the 
poorest  of  earth's  inhabitants— Savonarola  deny- 
mg  absolution  to  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  except- 
mg  on  his  own  spiritual  terms— Luther  proclaiming 
agamst  the  Pope  and  Emperor  "the  priesthood  of 
the   common   man  "-the  English   Independents 
assertmg  the  essential  freedom  of  the  children  of 
God— Wesley    taking    appeal    from    princes   and 
archbishops   to   the   miners   of   Litchfield— these 
are  but  a  few  of  the  more  glorious  episodes  in  the 
history  of  Christianity  which  illustrate  the  essen- 
tial democracy  of  the  movement.     Here  there  are 
no  high  nor  low,  rich  nor  poor,  master  nor  slave 
king  nor  subject!    All,  even  "unto  the  least  " 
are  children  of  God,   brothers  in  Christ!     "He 
hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats  " 
sang  Mary,   "and  exalted  them  of  low  degree." 
This  is  the  real  spirit  which  animated  Jesus  at  the 


Conditional  Immortality 


225 

beginning,  and  the  spirit  which  has  I^H  h  • 
and  prophets  down  to  our  own  dav      h  >!' 

impossibility  of  conceiving  that  th.-  '',  *^^ 

was  conditioned  „r.^  ,        ^  immortal  life 

motely  reflrcted  the  H  "'^*'"^  "^^^^  ^^^"    ^- 
y  Aciiectea  tJie  class  or  caste  rli'^fi^^^-- 

human  society!  If  there  ^^Tlr^t^'T  °^ 
they  must  be  moral  and  not  TocS  '^;tT'°"'' 
and  weakest  must  have  .7         ,    ,'     ^^  ^°'^^^* 

vation  with  thThir.      .  ^'^"^^  ^''^"^^  f°^  sal- 
I  witn  ine  highest  and  greatest  an^  i, 

of  conditional  immoS '„  ?T°°  ""■='?'»- 
as  the  pagan.  ™'"°"='"J'  «"->i8l>  as  intolerable 

may  be  punished  for  their  oW.!  '"''^''*' 

sovereignty,  so  it  was  a    leL Tt''  '"'"f   ^'' 
believe  that  Onrl  hJu  °*  impossible  to 

where  he  coSieJ^s^^^  °^  retribution, 


226 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


trine  of  eternal  punishment  should  reach  its  cul- 
mination also  in  the  writings  of  this  same  great 
theologian. 

Now-a-days,  however,  we  have  come  to  think  of 
God  not  as  a  sovereign  ruling  his  subjects,  but  as  a 
father  guiding  his  children.     We  have  returned  in 
this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  to  the  long-lost 
gospel  of  the  Nazarene.     And  from  this  point  of 
view,  the  whole  conception  of  hell  and  its  ever- 
lasting torments  becomes  irreconcilable  with  our 
thought  of  the  Divine.     Surely  if  God  is  "our 
Father,"  he  must  embody  all  of  those  spiritual 
attributes  which  we  instinctively  associate  with 
fatherhood — namely,  tenderness, compassion,  sym- 
pathy, forgiveness,  love.     And  surely,  if  this  is  the 
case,  he  cannot   be  conceived   of,   even    in    the 
wildest  stretches  of  the  imagination,  as  dooming 
any  of  his  children,  even  the  most  wicked,  to  un- 
ending pain  in  punishment  of  their  offences.     The 
thought  is  simply  madness,  for  God  must  be  at 
least  as  merciful  as  a  human  being,  and  no  earthly 
father  would  for  a  moment  decree  such  torment  for 
his  child.     We  shudder  instinctively  as  we  follow 
Dante  down  the  successive  circles  of  Inferno  and 
read  of  his  tearful  pity  for  the  sufferers  whom  he 
meets — and  for  no  other  reason  than  that  we  find 
the  Florentine  to  be  more  merciful  than  God! 
So  also  do  we  shudder  as  we  read  the  story  of  the 
murder  of  the  princes  in   the   Tower   by   their 
malignant  uncle,  Richard  III;  we  stand  aghast 
at  the  slaughter  of  Don  Carlos  by  his  unnatural 


Conditional  Immortality 


22y 

^f  ^.1,  .        '^^ligeiui  passion.     But  what  one 

the  dispatch  mto    the  nameless  tortures  of  hell 
of  one  lone  child  of  God,  to  say  nothing  of  the 

reZS  to  h  "'"^'^  °'  ^'^  ^^"  P-*'  '^°  - 
reported  to  have  gone  that  way? 

And  if  this  act  is  cruel,  what  shall  we  say,  in 

he  second  place,  as  to  its  justice?    Are  we  no  S 

this  moment  experiencing  a  radical  transformation 

or  cnme?    Are  we  not  more  and  more  coming  to 
the  pomt  of  agreeing  that  punishment,  in  the  fas? 

retributive?  Are  we  not  slowly  convincing  our- 
selves that  even  the  most  confirmed  offendfr  ^n 
be  restored  to -decent  manhood  if  his  puniSm^^t 
be  but  wisely  adapted  to  the  past  occasions  of  his 
downfall  and  the  present  state  of  his  moral  being 

fhatirr  fr '"^  *^^  '''^''^^  ^■-*-  demands 

tLmTh    r  d^'T""  '"'^  ""^  *^™--g  -bout 
them  the  redemptive  influences  of  good  environ- 

men  ,  human  comradeship,   moral  training  and 

spiritual  uplift?    And  are  we  not  just  now  putting 

ourselves  to  the  prodigious  task  of  so  reformW 

our  s    te^  of  legal  punishment,  that  a  man  3 

enter  a  pnson  as  he  does  a  hospital-not  to  be 

ortured  or  gotten  rid  of,  but  to  be  healed,  strength! 

ened,  and  restored  to  normal  life  ?    And  are  not  all 

these  changes  in  idea  and  effort  just  as  much  a  con- 


228 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Conditional  Immortah'ty 


demnation  of  Christianity's  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment  as  of  society's  doctrine  of  penology? 
What,  indeed,  have  men  been  doing  with  their 
criminals  but  following  God's  alleged  practice 
with  his  sinners?  And  if  they  now  find  them- 
selves under  indictment  for  injustice  to  offenders, 
must  they  not  also  find  God  guilty  of  the  same 
fault?  The  parallel  is  perfect.  Hence  the  grow- 
ing conviction  of  our  time  that  eternal  punishment 
has  no  place  in  the  world  that  is  to  come ! 

The  last  blow  at  this  traditional  idea  of  condi- 
tional immortality  was  struck  by  what  may  be 
termed    the   new   humanitarianism    of   our   age. 
More  and  more  today  is  our  race  becoming  one  in 
the  community  of  suffering.     More  and  more  are 
men  and  women  finding  it  difficult  to  be  happy 
themselves,  when  they  know  that  others  are  suffer- 
ing from  pain,  privation,  or  misfortune.    The  rich 
man  can  no  longer  enjoy  his  wealth,  or  the  ordin- 
ary man  even  his  decent  comfort,  when  he  knows 
that  Lazarus  is  dying  of  hunger  at  his  gate.    Ameri- 
cans can  no  longer  enjoy  their  independence,  when 
they  know  that  the  people  of  the  Czar  are  the 
helpless  victims  of  a  tyrannous  autocracy.     The 
persecution  of  Armenians  in  Turkey,  the  oppres- 
sion of  Jews  in  Russia,  the  exploitation  of  labour 
everywhere — these  iniquities  awaken  men  to  pity 
and  arouse  them  to  unrest.     The  race  is  one  in 
suffering.     Wherever    there    sounds    the    cry    of 
weakness  and  pain,  there  speeds  the  succour  of 
humanity.    And  just  here,  in  this  new  humani- 


ll 


229 

tananism  as  we  call  it,  do  we  see  the  overthrow 

the  future  hfe.     For  if  it  is  impossible  for  men 
upon  the  earth  to  be  happy  when  their  fellows  in 
some  remote  corner  of  the  globe  are  in  distress, 
how  can  we  conceive  of  these  same  men  being 
happy  m  heaven  when  their  fellows  are  similarly 
suffenng  m  hell?    I  for  one  cannot  conceive  S 
hell  bemg  so  far  separated  from  heaven,  that  the 
horrors  of  the  one  would  not  disturb  the  tran! 
qmlhty  of  the  other.    The  story  of  the  saint  of  Sd 
who  was  assured  that  his  life  of  devotion  had  won 
h.m  rest  and  peace  in  heaven,  and,  instead  of 
offenng  thanks  to  God  for  this  sweet  reward 
prayed  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  go  to  hell 
and  there  help  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the 

rather  than  of  h,s  own.     The  modem  man  has  no 

word!  f    r"  ^°  '°"^  "^  ^^"  ^'^'^^^-     I"  other 
^ords.  he  refuses  to  accept  the  boon  of  immortality 

under  the  conditions  named .  ^ 

III 

It  is  such  considerations  as  these  which  have  led 
to  the  general  acceptance  in  our  day  of  the  doc- 
trine of  universalism.  There  have  been  Christian 
teachers  m  all  ages  who  have  held  to  this  con- 
v,c  ,on-as  witness  Origen,  the  greatest  theologian 
o  the  early  Church,  Scotus  Erigena  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  and   more  lately   such   liberal   leaders 


230 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


as  William  Ellery  Channing,  Hosea  Ballou,  and 
Theodore  Parker.  The  Church  as  a  whole,  how- 
ever, has  ever  rejected  it  and  denounced  these 
teachers,  for  this  reason  among  others,  as  heretics. 
But  today  the  tide  has  turned.  The  whole  con- 
ception of  eternal  punishment  is  tumbling  to 
pieces;  hell  is  fast  disappearing  from  the  modern 
pulpit;  universalism  seems  to  be  very  far  upon 
the  way  of  general  acceptance  by  the  entire 
Christian  world. 

At  this  very  time,  however,  when  universalism 
seems  to  be  winning  all  along  the  line,  there  has 
appeared  a  new  theory  of  conditional  immortality, 
which    surpasses    in    definiteness    anything    that 
previous  thought,  in  either  pagan  or  Christian 
times,  can  show.     This  modem  doctrine,  indeed, 
is  the  only  one  to  which,  strictly  speaking,  we 
have  any  right  to  apply  the  phrase  ^'conditional 
immortality. "     For  here  we  are  offered,  in  uncom- 
promising fashion,  not  a  division  of  mankind  into 
those  who  are  to  meet  in  heaven  and  those  who  are 
to  depart  into  hell,  but  a  division  into  those  who 
are  to  inherit  eternal  life  and  those  who  are  to  be 
extinguished.     It  is  the  out-and-out  distinction, 
in  other  words,  between  immortality  and  annihila- 
tion—and thus  a  doctrine  of  immortality  which 
is  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word  conditional.    For 
the  first  time  in  human  thought,  we  are  today  face 
to  face  with  the  serious  contention  that  immortal- 
ity is  not  a  natural  inheritance  of  all  men,  but  is  a 
prize  which  may  be  won  under  conditions.     The 


Conditional  Immortality 


231 

eTi'iLh'tV  '"  "'';  '^  '^  ^^^^'  ^^^  universalism 
ends  with  this  one  fact  of  opportunity ! 

i™a«;  has*  t„"r'"r "'  '»°*""'" 

tJi^  ^jffi     u-        .  primarily  occasioned  bv 

the  difficulties  which  have  always  been  inherent 
m    he  theory  of  universalism  itself.     These  dTffi 
culties    however,  have  been  greatly  exaggeratS 
and  enarged    in  our  time,  by  certain  Sing 

.  .  ''°"°'"'  of  course,  is  the  difficulty  of  con 
cemng  he  mere  physical  possibiHty  of  gSn  in" 
immortality  to  everv  Ii„ma^    u  ■  ,  ^^'^"'^'"8 

Withnnf   /•  ^       ^"   "^^'"2  whatsoever. 

Without  raising  questions  as  to  moral  desert 
there  still  remains  the  perplexing  problem  as  to 
how  persons  who  are  so  different  fn  ^his  Xld "an 
enter  upon  the  same  kind  of  spiritual  existence  tn 
the  world  to  come?  Must  there  not  inevitably  be 
some  kind  of  distinction  or  at  least  grading  between 

graX  TrX'^'  "^^*  "°^  ^"^'  distfncttn  or 
grading  at  last  bring  us  to  the  point  of  cutting  out 

some  people  altogether?    Is  not  annihiS  in 

imbect  IZ  T7\  *'  feeble-minded,  the 
imbecile,  the  idiotic,  the  insane,  who  are  to  be 
numbered  the  world  around  by  the  millions  Go 
into  the  refuges  and  asylums  where  the  worst 

beastly  practices  of  which  they  are  guiltv  the 
hideous  illusions  of  which  they'^are  the  v£i  *' 
the  utter  loss  which  they  have  suffered  oTev^rJ 


232 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


mental  and  spiritual  attribute  which  binds  them 
to  humanity !  In  so  far  as  they  can  be  classified 
at  all,  these  wretches  must  be  described  as  human 
beings.  The  very  fact  that  we  do  not  kill  them 
outright  and  thus  put  them  out  of  their  misery, 
as  we  would  animals  in  a  like  condition,  proves 
that  we  believe  them  to  be  in  some  sense  human. 
And  yet,  were  it  not  for  their  forms  and  features, 
we  should  never  imagine  that  they  were  men. 
Every  other  vestige  of  their  origin  has  disappeared. 
In  all  the  functions  that  relate  to  life,  they  are 
simply  animals — nay,  worse  than  animals,  for  all 
that  attraction  and  beauty  which  move  such  a  poet 
as  Walt  Whitman  to  declare  that  he  "could  go  and 
Hve  with  animals,"  is  here  supplanted  by  the 
loathsome  and  the  ugly.  Surely  these  unfortu- 
nates are  not  destined  to  enter  upon  eternal  life. 
Where  are  the  souls  which  are  to  survive  the 
wreckage  of  the  flesh?  Death  must  be  the  end  in 
cases  such  as  these,  else  is  the  whole  doctrine  of 
immortality  made  ridiculous! 

Raised  only  a  Httle  above  these  miserable  be- 
ings are  the  vicious  and  depraved — the  criminals 
who  prey  upon  property  and  life,  the  prostitutes 
who  infest  the  darkened  streets  of  cities,  the 
"bad  men"  and  "bad  women"  who  constitute 
a  perfectly  distinct  group  in  every  ordered  so- 
ciety. These  persons,  unHke  the  feeble-minded 
and  insane,  retain  a  full  degree  of  self-conscious- 
ness, frequently  have  a  high  degree  of  under- 
standing, and  reveal  in  distorted  loyalties  and 


Conditional  Immortality  233 

instinctive  kindnesses,  certain  rudiments  of  moral 
sense.  And  yet  those  high  attributes  of  spiritu- 
ality which  really  distinguish  man  from  the  brute 
creature  have  disappeared,  if  indeed  they  were 
ever  present  in  these  wicked  lives.  Immortality 
must  surely  be  morally  conditioned !  It  must  be 
a  life  of  the  free  spirit,  if  it  is  anything  at  all !  And 
if  this  be  the  case,  it  necessarily  follows,  does  it 
not,  that  all  such  creatures  as  these  must  be  ex- 
cluded from  its  blessing.  Surely  the  murderer 
cannot  enter  upon  the  same  destiny  as  his  innocent 
victim!  The  hardened  prostitute  must  be  for- 
bidden sharing  a  like  fate  with  the  pure  wife  and 
saintly  mother!  It  cannot  be  that  Herod  and 
Pilate  mount,  with  Jesus,  to  eternal  life!  And  if 
there  be  no  hell  to  which  to  consign  these  offenders, 
what  solution  of  the  problem  is  left  save  that  of 
annihilation? 

And  what  shall  we  say  about  the  vast  host  of 
benighted  and  half-human  creatures  which  swarm 
like  flies  in  all  portions  of  the  earth?  The  Hotten- 
tots, the  Fiji  Islanders,  the  Australian  bushmen, 
the  African  blackmen,  the  teeming  hordes  of  India, 
the  brooding  millions  of  China — is  it  possible  that 
these  share  the  immortality  which  we  believe  to  be 
our  destiny?  And  if  so,  does  not  the  fact  of  the 
eternal  life  begin  to  expand  to  proportions  which 
come  perilously  near  to  passing  the  bounds  of 
credibility?  The  peoples  of  the  ancient  world 
were  never  bothered  by  this  problem,  as  the 
question  of  immortaHty  was  taken  to  involve  only 


I 


234 


Is  Death  the  End? 


their  own  fellow-countrymen.  The  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  Jew  and  Gentile,  Greek  and 
Barbarian,  carried  over  nicely  from  this  w^orld  to 
the  next !  Our  Christian  forefathers  also  found  an 
easy  escape  from  the  dilemma  by  regarding  all 
foreigners  as  "heathen,"  and  virtuously  consign- 
ing them  to  a  pit  of  fire  which  was  conveniently 
described  as  "bottomless."  We  have  of  course 
got  humanized  far  beyond  this  point  today.  We 
feel  our  kinship  with  even  the  lowest  and  most  alien 
of  men.  But  still  we  cannot  seem  to  carry  over 
the  thought  of  the  necessary  survival  of  these 
people  into  the  vast  reaches  of  eternity.  We  fail 
to  see  any  spiritual  value  in  them.  We  have  little 
use  for  them  as  men,  and  do  not  see  what  possible 
use  God  himself  can  have  for  them.  "It  oppresses 
us, "  says  William  James,  discussing  this  subject  in 
his  Human  Immortality,  "to  think  of  their  sur- 
vival."    What  fitness  is  there 

in  their  eternal  perpetuation  unreduced  in  numbers? 
.  .  .  Life  is  a  good  thing  on  a  reasonably  copious 
scale;  but  the  very  heavens  themselves,  and  the  cosmic 
times  and  spaces,  would  stand  aghast,  we  think,  at 
the  notion  of  preserving  eternally  such  an  ever-swell- 
ing plethora  and  glut  of  it.  .  .  .  We  give  up  our  own 
immortality  sooner  than  believe  that  all  the  hosts  of 
Hottentots  and  Australians  that  have  been,  and  ever 
shall  be,  should  share  it  with  us  in  scBCula  sceculorum!^ 

Nor  is  this  the  end  of  our  difficulty.     On  the 

*  See  Human  Immortality,  pages  31-36. 


Conditional  Immortality  235 


contrary,  it  remained  for  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
to  put  the  cap-stone  on  this  block  of  stumbling  by 
so  widening  the  vista  of  human  history  as  to  multi- 
ply immeasurably  the  hordes  of  candidates  for 
immortaHty.  Our  ancestors  looked  back  upon  a 
history  which  was  "a  comparatively  snug  affair. " ' 
Six  thousand  years  was  the  limit  of  its  span.  To- 
day, however,  we  are  carried  back,  in  the  cosmic 
sweep  of  the  evolution  theory,  to  ages  so  remote 
that  it  is  difficult  to  measure  the  intervening  dis- 
tance even  by  the  unit  of  centuries.  For  milHons 
of  years  man  has  been  living  here  upon  the  earth. 
He  goes  back  without  question  to  the  tertiary 
period,  and  it  is  no  longer  unreasonable  to  suspect 
that  his  origin  as  a  human  antedates  even  this 
dim  epoch  of  cosmic  history.  And  during  all  this 
stupendous  period,  let  it  be  noted,  he  has  been  a 
man  and  not  an  animal,  although  to  look  upon 
him,  and  study  the  habits  of  his  primitive  life, 
we  should  never  imagine  him  to  be  akin  to  our- 
selves, his  lineal  descendants.  What  now  about 
immortality  for  this  creature?  See  him  as  he 
wanders  through  the  primeval  forests,  unclothed 
and  hairy  like  the  ape — long-armed,  huge-handed, 
sabre-toothed — wielding  as  his  only  weapon  a 
broken  stick  or  a  handy  stone — inhabiting  caves 
of  the  earth  or  rough  bowsers  in  the  trees — mum- 
bling the  rude  jargon  of  unfashioned  speech — hunt- 
ing, fighting,  tearing  at  raw  flesh,  mating  fiercely 
with  his  female,  trembling  at  storm  and  flood, 

^  See  Human  Immortality,  page  31. 


236 


Is  Death  the  End? 


I 


dying  horribly  at  last  in  fierce  combat  with  some 
wild  beast  of  his  habitat !  Is  this  creature,  and  the 
unnumbered  billions  like  him  who  came  before 
and  followed  after,  to  be  included  within  the  scope 
of  life  eternal?  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
these  myriad  hordes  of  savage  humans,  whose 
bones  now  form  the  very  texture  of  our  earth,  are 
immortal  like  ourselves — that  that  poor  creature, 
whose  flat  and  ugly  skull  was  dug  up  but  yesterday 
in  the  clay  pits  of  Dartmoor,  England,  is  now  an 
immortal  spirit?  Or  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  immortality,  like  the  spiritual  attributes  of 
which  it  is  the  ultimate  fulfilment,  is  something  at- 
tained, by  slow  accretion  and  long  struggle,  in  the 
comparatively  late  stages  of  human  development? 
In  other  words,  is  it  not  practically  certain  that 
immortality  is  conditional,  at  least  to  the  extent 
that  it  has  been  entered  upon  only  by  what  may 
be  regarded  as  the  highest  and  truest  species  of 
human-kind? 

This  conclusion  seems  certain,  as  regards  not 
only  our  barbaric  ancestors,  but  also  the  other 
groups  of  human  beings  which  I  have  described, 
when  we  remember  that  evolution  explains  all  life 
as  fundamentally  determined  by  the  process  of 
*' natural  selection"  or  ** survival  of  the  fittest." 
According  to  this  conception,  which  is  no  longer  in 
dispute  among  scientific  men,  nature  exercises  a 
choice,  through  the  indirect  medium  of  the  relation 
between  a  living  organism  and  its  environment,  as 
to  the  species,  and  the  individuals  of  each  species, 


Conditional  Immortality  237 

which  shall  survive  and  reproduce  their  kind. 
All  life  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  struggle,  in  which 
the  majority  of  animal  forms  perish  and  the  chosen 
few  only  attain.  Persistently,  by  this  method  of 
sorting  the  fit  from  the  unfit,  has  nature  pushed 
onward  and  upward  toward  her  goals,  until  today 
she  points  to  man  as  the  proudest  achievement  of 
her  handiwork.  Behind  is  the  vast  wreckage  of 
the  thousands  of  species  which  have  appeared 
upon  the  earth  only  to  disappear,  and  the  billions 
of  individuals  in  each  particular  species  which 
have  similarly  disappeared.  The  remnant  sur- 
vives, and  by  its  perfection  of  development 
justifies  the  ruthless  process  of  selection. 

Now  the  meaning  of  all  this  for  our  thought  of 
the  life  after  death  would  seem  to  be  obvious. 
The  same  principle  of  natural  selection  which  is 
operative  in  the  physical  realm  is  operative  also 
in  the  spiritual.  Man  has  only  lately,  in  the 
evolutionary  process,  developed  an  immortal 
soul,  just  as  he  developed  at  only  a  slightly  earlier 
period  an  upright  carriage  and  an  ordered  speech. 
Previous  to  this  most  wonderful  of  all  moments  in 
cosmic  history,  he  perished  like  the  veriest  beasts 
of  the  field.  Now,  however,  every  man  comes  into 
the  world  with  the  capacity  for  immortal  life.  But 
whether  that  capacity  shall  be  realized  or  not, 
depends  in  each  case  upon  the  individual  and  his 
power  of  adaptation  to  the  new  spiritual  environ- 
ment into  which  he  has  been  born.  There  is  the 
struggle,  in  other  words,  for  the  survival  of  the 


238 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


soul,  just  as  in  the  lower  physical  realm  there  is 
the  struggle  for  the  survival  of  the  body.     And 
m  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  only  the  fittest  can 
survive !     The  vast  majority  of  men  never  attempt 
to  hve  on  the  high  level  of  things  spiritual.     They 
gladly  surrender  to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  and  Hve 
for  no  nobler  purpose  than  the  perpetual  gratifica- 
tion of  their  selfish  appetites  and  brutal  passions 
For  such,  of  course,  there  can  be  no  immortahty 
They  will  perish  utterly  when  perishes  the  flesh 
m  the  environment  of  which  they  have  deliberately 
chosen  to  pass  their  days.     More  literally  than 
even  he  himself  imagined  did  Paul  speak  the  truth 
when  he  said,    ''The  wages  of  sin  are  death." 
With  those,  however,  who  have  cultivated  the 
fruits  of  the  spirit,  it  shall  be  otherwise.     These 
are  they  who  shall  survive  the  dying  of  the  flesh 
for  the  simple  reason  that  the  principle  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  is  just  as  much  in  control  here 
as  elsewhere.     "Delivered  from  the  body  of  this 
death'*  even  before  the  moment  of  their  physical 
dissolution,  by  their  exclusive  devotion  to  the  high 
and  noble  things  of  life,  they  enter  upon  immor- 
tahty  as  naturally  as  day  passes  into  day.     ' '  Now 
are  (they)  the  children  of  God*';  and  therefore  is  it 
mevitable  that,  in  the  future,  they  shall  ''be  like 
Him." 

Such  is  the  modem  theory  of  conditional  im- 
mortahty! Rooted  in  the  difficulties  inherent  in 
the  idea  of  universalism,  it  finds  its  special  cogency 
in  our  time  in  certain  implications  involved  in  the 


i 


! 


Conditional  Immortality  239 

evolutionary  interpretation  of  life.  In  its  present 
form,  as  in  its  ancient  forms,  it  is  fundamentally 
an  attempt  to  meet  the  fact  of  the  apparent 
worthlessness  of  the  greater  part  of  human  life, 
which  constitutes  the  chief  argument  against  im- 
mortahty.' In  essence,  it  finds  its  answer  to 
this  problem  in  the  rigorous  declaration  that  it 
is  only  the  worthy  who  can  hope  to  live  forever;  all 
others  must  perish  utterly  at  death. 

IV 

And  what  now  shall  be  said  of  this  attempt  to 
limit  in  this  fashion  the  scope  of  the  immortal  life  ? 

First  of  all,  it  must  be  admitted  that  this  con- 
ception of  conditional  immortality,  as  thus  stated, 
presents  very  apparent  advantages  to  the  thought- 
ful mind.  It  undoubtedly  meets  the  inherent  ob- 
jections to  the  doctrine  of  universaHsm.  It  has 
the  unquestioned  merit  of  carrying  over  into  the 
spiritual  realm  the  same  principle  of  unfolding 
life  that  has  been  uncovered  in  the  physical  realm, 
and  thus  of  affirming  by  the  recognition  of  "one 
law  for  nature  and  for  grace  "  the  essential  unity  of 
the  cosmos.  It  restores  to  our  faith  in  immortal- 
ity its  necessary  moral  and  rehgious  content, 
which   was   seemingly   threatened  by    universal- 

^  See  William  Adams  Brown's  The  Christian  Hope,  page  191: 
"As  the  chief  argument  against  immortality  is  the  apparent 
worthlessness  of  human  life  as  we  know  it,  so  the  chief  argument 
for  immortality  is  the  existence  of  men  and  women  who  deserve 
it." 


240 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


ism,  and  at  the  same  time  avoids  the  awful  horror 
of  an  eternity,  not  only  of  suffering,  but  of  sin. 
Above  all  it  provides  the  only  clear,  straightfor- 
ward statement  that  we  have  had  in  modern  terms 
of  the  traditional  Christian  doctrine  that  the  one 
ground  for  hope  of  immortality  is  the  Christ  life. 
Is  It  not  true  that  what  we  have  here,  after  all,  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  twentieth-century 
philosophical  statement  of  the  ancient  theological 
dictum  of  St.  Paul,  "As  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in 
Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive "?^ 

V 

In  spite  of  these  excellencies,  however,  this 
theory  of  conditional  immortaHty  is  not  without 
its  difficuhies.  And  the  more  carefully  these 
difficulties  are  considered,  the  more  insuperable 
do  they  seem  to  become. 

First  of  all,  we  must  be  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  the  doom  pronounced  upon  those  who  fail 
to  measure  up  to  the  spiritual  standards  of  eternal 
life    is    the    most    terrible    imaginable— namely, 
annihilation!     The  melancholy   corridors   of   the 
underworid  of  the  Greeks  were  pitiful  enough. 
The  perpetual  fires  of  the  Christian  hell  seemed  an 
unsurpassable  refinement  of  cruelty.     But  worse 
than  either  of  these  two  is  this  last  fate  of  all- 
destruction!     The  Grecian  shades  were  at  least 
not  robbed  of  consciousness  and  were  even  granted 

*  See  I  Corinthians  xv:  22 


yet 


Conditional  ImmortaHty  241 

tlie  inestimable  boon  of  memory;  and  when  sum- 
moned by  some  such  denizen  of  the  upper  worid  as 
Ulysses  could  hold  sweet  converse  with  the  Hving 
The  damned  of  Christendom,  terrible  as  was 
their  lot,  were  still  not  utterly  condemned  for 
they  were  still  themselves,  and  by  sheer  power  of 
spirit  could  defy  the  utmost  agonies  of  torture. 
This  Shelley  suggests,  in  the  opening  act  of  his 
Prometheus  Unbound,  where  he  pictures  his  hero 

Nailed  to  the  wall  of  eagle-baffling  mountain. 
Black,  wintry,  dead,  unmeasured  ... 

writhing  in  "pain,  pain  ever,  forever,'*  and 
defying  Jupiter  to  conquer  him. 

There  thousand  years  of  sleep,  unsheltered  hours. 
And  moments  age  divided  by  keen  pangs 
Till  they  seemed  years,  torture  and  solitude. 
Scorn  and  despair,— these  are  mine  empire:-^ 
More  glorious  than  that  which  thou  surveyest 
From  thine  unenvied  throne,  0  Mighty  God! 

Similar  is  the  note  struck  by  Stephen  Phillips  in 
Paolo's  glorious  speech  in  the  last  act  of  the 
Paolo  and  Francesca: 

What  can  we  fear,  we  two? 
O  God,  thou  seest  us  thy  creatures  bound 
Together  by  that  law  which  holds  the  stars 
In  palpitating  cosmic  passion  bright. 

Us,  then,  whose  only  pain  can  be  to  part," 
How  wilt  thou  punish?    For  what  ecstasy 


242 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Together  to  be  blown  about  the  globe ! 
What  rapture  in  perpetual  fire  to  burn 
Together  .'—where  we  are  is  endless  fire. 
These  centuries  shall  in  a  moment  pass, 
And  all  the  cycles  in  one  hour  elapse! 
Still,  still  together,  even  when  faints  thy  sun, 
And  past  our  souls  thy  stars  like  ashes  fall, 
How  wilt  thou  punish  us  who  cannot  part?^ 

In  this  theory  of  conditional  immortality,  however, 
not  even  these  last  remnants  of  consolation  are 
left.     Everything   is   absolutely   and   irrevocably 
gone !     Annihilation  is  the  word !      These  dead  are 
thrown  out  upon  the  rubbish-heap  of  time,  like 
ashes  drawn  from  burnt-out  fires.     Not  even  the 
barest  forms  of  matter  are  thus  consigned  to  dead 
oblivion.     Even  this  garment  of  clay,  in  which  we 
walk  the  ways  of  men,  is  caught  up  into  the  texture 
of  the  universe,  and  allowed  to  play  its  part  again 
in    the    divine    economy.     But    these    souls    are 
blotted  out— destroyed !     They  are  not  even  given 
the  privilege,  granted  to  the  meanest  schoolboy,  of 
trying  again— of  making  good  his  original  mistake. 
One  opportunity  only  is  granted,  and  "if  we  fail, 
we  fail!"     There  is  an  end  to  all,  henceforth  and 
forever! 

A  more  terrible  fate  than  this  of  annihilation 
has  never  been  conceived  by  the  human  imagina- 
tion. So  terrible  is  it,  indeed,  that  immediately 
we  find  ourselves  asking  if  there  are  any  souls 

'  See  Dante's  Divine  Comedy  (Longfellow's  translation),  Canto 
V,  line  135:     "This  one,  who  ne'er  from  me  shaU  be  divided." 


Conditional  Immortality  243 

so  worthless  as  to  deserve  such  a  doom  as  this? 
How  are  we  to  discriminate  between  the  natural 
man  and  the  spiritual  man?  Where  are  we  to 
draw  the  line  between  those  who  are  destined  to 
literal  destruction  and  those  who  are  destined 
to  immortality? 

Shall   we   begin   with   the   feeble-minded,  the 
idiotic,  and  the  insane?    But  why  should  we  con- 
demn the  souls  of  these  unhappy  beings  to  annihi- 
lation, merely  because  of  the  disorganization  of 
their  physical  bodies?     How  many  times  has  the 
defective  been  restored  to  a  normal  condition  of 
intellectuality  by  some  simple  surgical  operation 
on  the  ear  or  the  eye,  or  by  the  supply  of  adequate 
nourishment    to    the    anasmic    and    half-starved 
body?    How    often    has    the    idiot    been    made 
rational  by  the  healing  of  a  lesion  or  the  removal 
of  a  blood-clot  in  the  brain?    How  often  has  the 
lunatic  been   brought   back  to   some  degree  of 
sanity  at  least  by  the  sweet  balm  of  rest  and 
peace  ?     The  souls  of  these  unfortunates  are  as  fair 
and  true  as  those  of  any  normal  person.     And  yet 
IS  it  seriously  proposed  that  these  souls  shall  be 
destroyed  because  they  are  caught  in  the  jarring 
mechanism  of  disordered  bodies.     As  well  argue 
that  the  sun  should  be  blotted  out  because  it  fails 
to  send  its  rays  through  the  sooty  window  of  a 
neglected  furnace-room!    As   well   say   that   the 
fresh   breezes  of  the  sky  should  be  suppressed 
because  they  fail  to  make  their  way  into  the 
windowless  rooms  of  the  city  tenement!    As  well 


244 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


declare  that  Paderewski  should  be  driven  from 
every  concert  room  because  he  cannot  woo  the 
ears  of  men  with  Chopin's  melodies  upon  some 
untuned,    broken-stringed   piano   of   yester-year! 
These  poor  imbeciles  and  lunatics  must  be  the  last 
and  not  the  first  to  be  destroyed.     If  any  are  to 
be  flung  upon  the  refuse  heap,  let  it  be  those  who 
have  lived  their  lives  in  "sweetness  and  light," 
made  their  contribution  to  the  spiritual  sum  of 
things,  had  their  chance  and  done  their  work. 
Something  might  be  said  for  destruction  in  these 
cases,  but  nothing  surely  for  the  destruction  of 
those  who,  badly  bom,  cruelly  neglected,  ravaged 
by    stress   and   strain,    have   been   denied    their 
opportunity  of  Hf e ! 

Or  is  it  the  criminals  whom  we  will  discard.^ 
But  here  again  we  are  deterred  by  the  illuminating 
experiences  of  our  day  and  generation.     For  we 
are  making  a  study  of  criminality  today  from  a 
fresh  viewpoint  and  with  a  new  sympathy,  and  we 
are  more  and  more  coming  to  see  that  not  the 
individual,  but  the  society  which  has  borne  and 
trained  him,  is  the  responsible  factor  in  the  lives 
of  the  great  majority  of  offenders.     A  few  wrong- 
doers are  undoubtedly  bad,  in  the  sense  that  they 
deliberately,   with  knowledge  and  malice  afore- 
thought, will  to  do  evil.     More  wrong-doers  are 
defective,  either  physically,  or  mentally,  or  both— 
as  witness  the  great  number  of  prostitutes  who 
are  feeble-minded.     But  the  overwhelming  major- 
ity of  wrong-doers  are  the  victims  of  the  hopeless 


Conditional  Immortality  245 

environment  in  which  they  have  been  reared.     The 
juvenile  delinquent  in  the  Manhattan  court  comes 
almost  invariably  from  certain  restricted  areas  in 
the  slum  sections  of  the  lower  and  upper  East  Side 
The  pickpocket,  burglar,  and  gunman  is  the  nat- 
ural product  of  the  tenement  which  has  no  home, 
of  the  street  which  has  no  playground,  of  the 
poverty  which  has  no  physical  comforts  nor  moral 
standards,  of  the  whole  economic  system  at  the 
bottom  of  which  is  the  starved,  neglected,  and 
corrupted  child.     The  prostitute,  save  in  those 
cases  where  feeble-mindedness  is  the  determining 
factor,  is  the  weak  or  desperate  victim  of  low 
wages,  long  hours,  exhausted  vitality,  and  a  soul 
starved  of  pleasure,  companionship,  and  affection. 
The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  we  all  represent 
nothmg  more  nor  less  than  a  mixture  of  good  and 
bad  impulses.     In  every  one  of  us  there  is  the 
downward  tendency  toward  the  life  of  physical 
indulgence,  selfish  ambition,  personal  aggrandize- 
ment and  power;  and  in  every  one  of  us  also  the 
upward   tendency   toward   the   life  of  devotion 
self-sacrifice,  love.     There  is  no  one  of  us  so  good 
but   what  he  has  his  inward   struggles  against 
selfishness,  deceit,  and  lust;  and  no  one  of  us  so 
bad  but  what  he  has  his  moments  of  noble  striving 
for  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good.     The 
best  of  us  embody  the  inherent  possibilities  of  all 
that  is  in  the  worst ;  and  the  worst  of  us  contain 
the  inherent  possibilities  of  all  that  is  in  the  best. 
St.  Paul  never  wrote  a  truer  word  than  when  he 


246 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


depicted,  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans,  the  awful 
struggle  that  is  going  on  all  the  time  between  what 
he  called  the  flesh  and  the  spirit. 

Now  it  is  people  of  this  kind,  who  are  both  good 
and  bad,  and  not  people  who  are  wholly  the  one 
thmg  or  the  other,  who  are  being  born  into  this 
world  of  ours.     Some  of  these  people  are  bom  into 
an  environment  of  such  a  character  that,  from  the 
very  earliest  years  on,  they  find  every  good  impulse 
of  their  natures  fostered  and  encouraged,   and 
every  bad  impulse  withered  and  repressed.     But 
how  is  It  with  the  people  who  are  bom  amid  other 
circumstances-these  hordes  of  men  and  women 
m  city  slum  and  rural  cottage  who  constitute  the 
great  majority  of  humanity?    These  people,  like 
all  others,  find  within  themselves  the  same  natural 
mixture  of  good  and  bad.     But  instead  of  being 
helped  by  the  social  conditions  into  which  they  are 
bom,  and  amid  which  they  live  and  work  from  day 
to  day,  they  find,  on  the  contrary,  that  every 
influence  is  dead  against  them.     Some  there  are 
among  these  denizens  of  earth  who  are  bom  with 
indomitable  and  unconquerable  wills,  and  these 
succeed  in  winning  out  even  against  the  most 
temfic  odds.    And  the  world  immediately  does 
the  grossly  inhuman  thing  of  citing  these  excep- 
tional moral  geniuses  as  proofs  that  everybody  can 
win  out  in  the  economic  and  spiritual  stmggle,  if 
he  really  wants  to— as   though  everybody  could 
be  a  Shakespeare,  a  Napoleon,  or  a  Lincoln,  by 
simply  trying!    The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the 


Conditional  Immortality         247 

majority  of  men  and  women  are  simply  average 
that  is  all,  and  when  they  find  themselves  Hving  in 
a  social  environment  which  is  ugly,  unhealthy,  and 
degrading,  they  go  to  pieces— first  physically,  and 
then  slowly  but  surely  morally! 

Born  into  unwholesome  tenements  which  never 
get  a  breath  of  fresh  air  or  a  ray  of  sunlight,  and 
which  are  filled  with  dirt,  disease,  and  decay  of  ev- 
ery kind— denied  clean,  nourishing,  and  adequate 
food— neglected  and  abused  by  parents  who  are 
worn  out  by  exhausting  and  ill-paid  toil— playing 
in  dark  tenements  and  dirty  gutters,  and  never  in 
green  pastures  and  by  still  waters— put  to  work  in 
sweatshop  or  factory  or  store  at  the  age  when 
freedom  and  joy  are  the  natural  accompaniments 
of  existence— living  in  small  rooms  crowded  with 
boarders  as  well  as  members  of  the  family,  where 
personal  privacy  and  all  standards  of  ordinary 
decency  are  precluded— overwhelmed,   in  short 
from  the  very  hour  of  birth,  by  all  the  conditions 
which  gnnding  poverty  makes  inevitable  in  a  great 
city  today— what    wonder  that    they  go  wrong 
sooner  or  later?    What  wonder  that  bad  impulses 
grow,  and  good  impulses  wither?    What  wonder 
that  the  girls  find  it  easy  to  become  prostitutes,  and 
the  boys  to  become  criminals  ?    Why,  when  I  con- 
sider the  way  the  majority  of  people  in  this  world 
have  to  live— the  ceaseless  stmggle  which  they 
have  to  make  for  bread-the  things  of  beauty, 
joy,  and  love  which  they  are  denied  from  year's  end 
to  year's  end— the  degrading  influences  of  physical 


i: 


•WtU^^MMi^£:mi:im& 


248 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


f 


depression,  mental  darkness,  and  spiritual  atrophy 
which  assail  them  every  moment  of  every  day — my 
wonder  is  not  that  so  many  of  them  give  way 
morally,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  so  many,  in 
spite  of  every  adverse  condition,  succeed  in  living 
pure,  honest,  upright,  righteous  lives.     Do  you  ask 
me  if  I  beheve  in  the  divinity  of  human  nature? 
I  answer,  yes!    And  if  you  want  to  know  the 
grounds  for  my  belief,  I  point  you  first  of  all  not 
to  the  classic  achievements  of  the  martyrs,  saints, 
and  heroes  of  ancient  days,  but  to  the  martyrs, 
saints,  and  heroes  of  our  own  day,  who  are  facing 
the  indescribable  horrors  of  economic  dependence, 
and  still,  in  spite  of  all,  are  keeping  sweet,  brave, 
and  true.      And  it  is  the  weaker  among  these 
**our  brethren, "  who  have  been  unable  to  endure, 
who  we  are  asked  to  believe,  forsooth,  are  not 
worth  saving  to  another  opportunity  in  another 
life! 

But  perhaps  the  vast  hordes  of  alien  people  who 
swarm  like  flies  on  distant  continents  are  the  ones 
who  are  fated  to  be  cast  into  outer  darkness! 
They  certainly  have  no  individual  preciousness 
and  would  only  glut  the  heavenly  spaces  by  their 
continuance.  They  serve  no  purpose  in  this 
world,  and  surely  can  serve  no  purpose  in  the  next ! 
But  are  we  so  sure  of  this  fact  ?  Are  these  swarm- 
ing multitudes  as  worthless  as  they  may  seem? 
What  did  the  proud  Romans  suspect  of  the  destiny 
of  the  blond  giants  who  trod  the  forests  of  Ger- 
mania  ?     What  did  Byzantium  dream  of  the  dirty 


' 


Conditional  Immortah'ty  249 

-  Bedouins  who  roamed  the  deserts  of  Arabia?  What 
know  we  of  the  fate  in  store  for  the  starving  China- 
man and  the  brooding  Hindoo  ?    And  even  though 
no  part  in  the  world's  progress  is  awaiting  these 
peoples,  is  it  so  certain  that  their  lives  are  still 
of  no  abiding  worth?     If  we  think  so,  in  our  flip- 
pant, superior  way,  is  not  the  trouble  with  us  rather 
than  with  them?     Certainly  their  lives  have  a 
significance  from  (heir  point  of  view,  if  not  from 
ours ;  and  they  would  demur  as  quickly,  we  may  im- 
agine, at  the  prospect  of  their  ultimate  destruction 
as  we  would  at  such  a  prospect  of  our  own     The 
joy  and  expectancy  of  life  are  as  hot  with  them  as 
with  ourselves.     They  hail  each  morning  sun,  and 
bless  the  coming  of  each  restful  night.     They  play 
their  games,  and  reap  their  harvests.   They  marry 
and  give  in  marriage,  hail  the  coming  of  little  chil- 
dren and  weep  the  passing  of  their  beloved.    They 
pray  to  God,  and  crave  the  joys  of  eternity.     Life 
to  them  IS  sweet,  and  destruction  terrible.     There 
IS  "not  a  being  of  the  countless  throng,"  says 
Professor  James,  in  his  refreshing  discussion  of  this 
point  in  Human  Immortality, 

whose  continued  life  is  not  called  for,  and  called  for 
intensely,  by  the  consciousness  that  animates  the 
being  s  form.  That  you  neither  realize  nor  under- 
stand nor  call  for  it  ...  is  an  absolutely  irrelevant 
circumstance.  That  you  have  a  saturation  point 
of  interest  tells  us  nothing  of  the  interests  that 
absolutely  are. ' 

'  See  Human  Immortality,  pages  39-40. 


250 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Why  should  they  not  live?    The  universe  has 
room  for  all.     The  very  fact  that  it  has  created  all 
proves   that   it   needs  all  and   will  preserve  all. 
What  we  reveal,  when  we  class  these  alien  throngs 
as  worthless  dross,  is  our  lack  of  that  cosmic  vision 
which  sees  the  significance  of  all  life  just  because 
It  is  life,  and  detects  in  the  love  of  life  the  justifi- 
cation  of  life.     Given   that    cosmic    vision,    in- 
stantly it    becomes   plain    that    each   individual 
existence  is  only  one  more  channel  of  expression 
through  which  the  Divine  Spirit  manifests  itself, 
and  that,  inasmuch  as  this  Spirit  is  infinite,  there 
can  never  be   too  many  channels.     The  worth 
which  ever>^  meanest  human  being  finds  in  his 
own  life  is  itself  the  guarantee  of  that  worth,  and 
the  assurance  that  its  origin  is  in  God ! 

And  the  same  thing  must  be  said  in  reference 
to  all  these  myriad  ancestors  of  ours,  who  have 
battled  and  toiled  in  the  aeons  gone.     It  is  natural 
to  think  of  them  as  mere  animals,  and  therefore 
not  entitled  to  immortality.     Surely  their  inclu- 
sion within  the  scope  of  life  eternal  seems  to  lower 
the  nature  of  that  life  and  thus  cheapen  immeasur- 
ably the  dearest  of  all  boons.     And  yet,  who  that 
really  has  ^'the  understanding  heart"  can  draw 
the  line  even  against  these!    These  creatures  of 
the  cave  and  wood,  brutish  as  they  seem,  are  still 
our  brothers,  are  they  not?— as  much  our  kin  as 
those  who  precede  us  by  but  a  century  or  two !    All 
that  we  have  of  body  and  of  mind,  they  lived  and 
suffered    to   maintain.     The    passions   they    felt, 


i 


Conditional  Immortality  251 

the  instincts  they  followed,  the  privations  they 
endured,  the  experiments  they  made,  the  visions 
they  saw,  the  faiths  they  cherished,  the  lives  they 
hved,  and  the  deaths  they  died— these  are  what 
have  brought  us  where  we  are.     The  torch  of  life 
now  blazing  in  our  hands  is  the  torch  which  was 
passed  on,  in  centuries  of  darkness,  a  feeble  and  a 
flickering  flame,  from  hand  to  hand  of  these  our 
blood  progenitors!    With  what  heart  now  can  we 
cast  these  off?    By  what  right  can  we,  the  heirs  of 
their  struggles  and  achievements,  deny  to  them 
the  boon  we  cherish  for  ourselves?    Bone  of  our 
bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  are  not  these  nameless 
creatures  also  spirit  of  our  spirit?     The  difference 
between  us,  the  civilized,  and  them,  the  savage  and 
brutish,  is  indeed  prodigious— but  more  prodigious 
still  is  the  basic  identity  that  binds  us  in  one  great 
family  of  God. 

Not  our  differences  and  distinctions  ...  but  our 
common  animal  essence  of  patience  under  suffering 
and  enduring  effort  must  be  what  redeems  us  in  the 
Deity's  sight.  .  .  .    An  immortality  from  which  these 
inconceivable    billions   of   fellow-strivers    should    be 
excluded   becomes  an  irrational  idea  for  us.     That 
our   superiority  in   personal   refinement  .  .  .  should 
constitute    a  difference   between  ourselves  and  our 
messmates  at  life's  banquet,  fit  to  entail  such  a  con- 
sequential  difference  of  destiny  as  eternal  life  for  us, 
and  for  them  .  .  .  death  with  the  beasts  that  perish,' 
IS  a  notion  too  absurd  to  be  considered  serious. ' 

^  See  James,  Human  Immortality,  page  34. 


252 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


A  thousand  times  more  rational  is  it  to  suppose 
that  the  beasts  themselves  live  on,  to  share  with 
man  the  hfe  of  heaven  as  well  as  the  life  of  earth ' 
There  are  no  worthless!    There  are  no  human 
creatures  so  lost  as  to  be  justly  doomed  to  the 
awful  fate  of  annihilation!    Our  every  action  to- 
ward these  classes  which  I  have  named  reveals 
our  mstmctive  consciousness  of  their  basic  worth 
and  our  undying  hope  for  their  ultimate  recovery 
The  most  hopeless  defectives  we  shelter  tenderly 
in    pleasant    refuges.    The    wildest    lunatics    we 
ngidly  protect  from  their  own  mad  instincts  to 
self-destruction.     The  vilest  criminals  we  strive  to 
save  by  the  tested  practices  of  penological  reform 
The  "heathen"  hordes  of  China  arouse  the  world 
to  immeasurable  sacrifices,  lest  one  soul  perish 
The  starving  multitudes  of  India,  in  famine  days 
summon  grain  ships  from  every  corner  of  the 
globe,   lest  one  hungry  mouth  go  unfed     The 
sweating  slum-dwellers  of  our  cities  stir  the  con- 
science of  the  nation,  lest  one  puny  infant  need- 
lessly succumb.     Man  draws  no  lines,  erects  no 
barners,  respects  no  persons!    All  are  holy  in  his 
sight!    And  now,  forsooth,  shall  God  do  less  than 
man.?    Shall  he  cast  out,  when  man  would  retain? 
Shall  he  destroy,  when  man  would  preserve  ?    Shall 
he  be  another  Setebos,  who,  for  any  reason  or 
with  any  purpose,  shall  treat  men  as  Cahban  the 
crabs? 

Am  strong  myself  compared  to  yonder  crabs 
That  march  now  from  the  mountain  to  the  sea. 


Conditional  Immortality  253 

Let  twenty  pass,  and  stone  the  twenty-first, 
Loving  not,  hating  not,  just  choosing  so. 
Say,  the  first  straggler  that  boasts  purple  spots 
Shall  join  the  file,  one  pincer  twisted  off. 
Say,  this  bruised  fellow  shall  receive  a  worm. 
And  two  worms  he  whose  nippers  end  in  red'; 
As  it  likes  me  each  time,  I  do :  so  He. 

The  thing  is  unthinkable.     God,  no  less  than  man, 
must  give  his  love  "even  unto  the  least  of  these  "' 
All  are  the  children  of  his  spirit,  and  therefore  all 
of  mfinite  worth  in  his  paternal  sight!    As  well 
imagine  a  mother  declaring  one  of  the  children 
whom  she  has  borne  in  travail  and  suckled  at 
her  bosom  of  "no  account"  and  abandoning  him 
freely  to  destruction,  as  to  imagine  God  rejecting 
one  human  soul  as  worthless  and  dooming  it  to 
permanent   annihilation!    Jesus   knew   well   the 
mind  of  God  when  he  declared  that,  like  as  a 
"woman  having  ten  pieces  of  silver,  if  she  lose  one 
piece,  doth  light  a  candle,  and  sweep  the  house 
and  seek  diligently  till  she  find  it,"  or  as  a  "man 
having  a  hundred  sheep,  if  he  lose  one  of  them,  doth 
leave  the  ninety-and-nine  in  the  wilderness,  and  go 
after  that  which  is  lost,  until  he  find  it, "  "even  so  it 
is  the  will  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  that 
not  one  of  these  little  ones  should  perish. "    If  of 
sparrows,  how  much  truer  of  men,  that  "not  one  of 
them  is  forgotten  before  God"! 

So  far  as  the  worth  of  men  is  concerned,  there- 
fore, all  must  be  entitled  to  eternal  life.  There 
can  be  no  condition  of  immortality  short  of  the 


254 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


love  of  God,  which  is  universal!    All  men  are  his, 
and  will  be  his  forever!     Nor  need  we  be  dis- 
turbed at  what  Professor  James  calls  the  '*  plethora 
and  glut"  of  such  a  limitless  salvation.     There  is 
no  saturation-point  in  things  spiritual  as  in  things 
physical.     Earth  may  become  over-crowded  with 
men's  bodies,   but  not  heaven  with  their  souls. 
For  the  realm  of  consciousness  is  susceptible  to 
indefinite  expansion.     Each  new  mind   occupies 
Its  own  space,  and  trespasses  not  at  all  upon  the 
space  of  other  minds.     Indeed,  may  we  not  even 
say,  with  Kant,  that  space  is  the  creation  of  the 
mind— an   attribute  of  mind   as  quantity  is  of 
matter;  and  that  therefore  each  mind  provides 
within  itself  the  space  which   it   must   occupy.?' 
Certain  it  is  that  it  is  bodies  and  not  souls  that 
impose   limits   to   earth's   population,    and   that 
when  the  bodies  are  gone,  these  limits  will  be 
removed.     Therefore  may  unnumbered  souls  live 
on  into  eternity,  and  still  the  realm  of  spirit  be 
uncrowded. 

VI 

But  how  about  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection, 
which  seemed  to  fit  in  so  aptly  with  our  theory  of 
conditional  immortahty.?  Can  any  theory  of 
universalism  be  made  compatible  with  this  funda- 
mental factor  of  the  evolutionary  process  .>     If 

/See  James,  Human  Immortality,  pages  40,  41:  "Each  new 
mmd  bnngs  its  own  edition  of  the  universe  of  space  along  with  it. 
Its  own  room  to  inhabit. " 


Conditional  Immortality  255 

s 

not,  are  we  not  made  to  choose  between  these  two 
conceptions;  and  if  it  comes  to  this,  must  we  not 
chng   to  natural   selection,    with   all   its  fateful 
implications,  as  the  principle  which  has  behind  it 
the  facts  of  life  and  not  merely  the  speculations  of 
theology?    The  struggle  for  existence  is  certainly 
basic  in  the  physical  world;  survival  of  the  fittest 
is  certainly  the  outcome  of  this  struggle.    Must 
not  the  struggle,  now,  be  conceived  of  as  continu- 
ing over  into  the  spiritual  world,  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  as  the  outcome  there  as  here?    And 
in  this  case,  as  we  have  seen,  must  not  the  doctrine 
of  universalism  be  deemed  impossible,  and  some 
such  doctrine  of  conditional  immortality  as  we 
have  outlined  inevitable? 

_  So  it  would  seem  in  theory!  But  in  fact,  this 
IS  not  true!  The  cosmic  process  of  struggle  and 
survival  is  indeed  dominant  in  the  vast  realm  of 
organic  life  below  the  range  of  man.    It  has  been, 

and  still  is,  a  factor  in  the  development  of  human- 
ity. 

As  among  other  animals  [says  Thomas  Huxley,  in 
his  famous  Romanes  Lecture]  multiplication  goes  on 
without  cessation  and  involves  severe  competition  for 
the  means  of  support.  The  struggle  for  existence 
tends  to  ehminate  those  less  fitted  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  circumstances  of  their  existence.  The 
strongest,  the  most  self-assertive,  tend  to  tread  down 
the  weaker. ' 

■  See  Evolution  and  Ethics,  page  8l. 


256 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


But  nobody  can  study  human  history  with  any 
understanding  of  the  facts  involved,  without  ob- 
serving that,  very  early  in  his  career,  man   be- 
gan, at  first  unconsciously,  and  then  ever  more 
deliberately,  to  interfere  with  the  ruthless  workings 
of  the  selective  process,  and  to  protect  and  preserve 
those  members  of  the  human  family  who  might 
othenvise  be  destroyed.    More  and  more  he  began 
to  have  sympathy  for  the  weak,  and,  in  response 
to  this  sympathy,  to  put  forth  efforts  to  shelter 
them  from  the  rude  buffets  of  the  world.    Women 
were  very  generally  removed  from  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  given  over  to  the  protection  of 
father  or  husband.     Children   were  universally 
sheltered  until  after  the  period  of  adolescence  was 
well  passed.    The  sick,  the  crippled,  the  defective, 
the  msane,  the  aged,  at  first  cast  out  or  even  de- 
stroyed as  fatal  burdens  to  the  family  or  the  tribe, 
were  gradually  regarded  with  more  consideration 
and  even  tenderness,  until  today  the  mightiest  ex- 
ample of  concerted  effort  that  humanity  can  show 
is  that  which  is  put  forth  in  alleviation  of  the 
miseries  and  in  protection  of  the  weaknesses  of 
all  those  who,  from  the  standpoint  of  nature,  must 
be  regarded  as  "unfit."    Indeed,  so  far  has  this 
sacrifice  on  behalf  of  the  helpless  been  carried  in 
recent  times,  that  it  may  be  almost  said  that  man 
has  not  merely  interfered  with  the  natural  work- 
ings of  the  cosmic  process,  but  has  actually  re- 
versed it.    It  is  the  strong  who  are  sent  first  to 
endure  the  labours  and  the  hazards  of  industry- 


Conditional  Immortality 


257 

the  fit  who  are  deliberately  selected  for  the  peculiar 
perils  of  the  sea,  the  wilderness,  and  the  battlefield 
-the  best  who  are  gladly  sacrificed  for  the  uphft 
of  the  poor,  the  healing  of  the  diseased,  and  the 
so  ace  of  the  wretched.    And,  on  the  other  hand, 
s  It  the  infirm,  the  sick,  the  imbecile,  the  criminal 
the  aged,  who  are  protected  at  any  expense  o 
money  time,  and  labour.    Not  survival,  but  sacri- 
fice, is  today  regarded  as  the  noblest  achievement 
of  mankind;  and  the  death  of  the  strong  for  the 

Jnnn      -Jr  ^^^'  '''"  '"P""'"^  atonement  of  the 
IZ\,    J  /         fP  command   that  rings  across 
the  deck  of  a  sinkmg  ship,  "Women  and  children 
first!     is  the  climactic  illustration,  perhaps    of 
man  s  sublime  defiance  of  the  cosmic  law  of  lifei 
lo  many  thorough-going  evolutionists,  this  re- 
versal in  the  human  realm  of  the  natural  process 
of  struggle  and  survival  marks  a  concession  to 
emotion,  which  is  destined  to  be  fatal,  sooner  or 
later,  to  the  welfare  of  the  race.    Here  we  are,  they 
say,  deliberately  hazarding  the  fit  and  sheltering 
the  unfit  and  thus  overthrowing  the  very  process 
which  has  made  us  what  we  are,  and  yet  expecting 
to  survive!    Is  it  not  certain  that,  in  this  case  as  in 
every  case  where  nature  is  defied,  nothing  but 
destruction  can  be  the  final  outcome? 

To  a  man  like  Thomas  Huxley,  however,  who 
could  appreciate  not  only  the  biological  but  also 
the  ethical  factors  involved,  the  problem  was  not 
so  simple.  He  saw  as  clearly  as  anybody  that  man 
was  reversmg  nature's  law,  but  he  also  saw  that 

17 


258 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


man  was  doing  this  startling  thing  in  response  to 
the  call  of  those  profound  emotions  of  the  soul 
which  distinguish  the  human  from  the  animal, 
and  which  give  to  life  its  moral  beauty  and  spiritual 
sublimity.    Nothing  is  more  evident,  says  Huxley, 
in  the  Lecture  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  than 
the  fact  that  all  that  we  mean  by  civiHzation, 
enlightenment,  social  progress  has  been  achieved 
simply  and  solely  by  a  checking  of  the  cosmic 
process  at  every  step  and  substitution  for  it  of 
another,  which  may  be  called  the  ethical  process. 
"We  must  understand,"  he  declares,  "that  the 
ethical  progress  of  society  depends  not  on  imitat- 
ing the  cosmic  process,  still  less  in  running  away 
from  it,  but  in  combating  it."'    Man  is  man  and 
not  a  "tiger,  red  in  tooth  and  claw  with  ravin" — 
humanity   finds   its   embodiment   in   an   ordered 
society  and   not  in  a  wild  jungle  melee — for  no 
other   reason   than   that   man   has  decreed   that 
sacrifice  shall  displace  struggle  as  the  law  of  Hfe, 
and  the  weak  survive  even  at  the  cost  of  the  strong. 
We  might  as  well  make  up  our  minds  that  "the 
cosmic  process  has  no  sort  of  relation  to  moral 
ends,"  and  that  morality  is  achieved,  love  won, 
and  service  rendered  to  one  another,  only  because 
man  has  succeeded  in  stopping  the  oppositions  of 
the  natural  process,  so  far  at  least,  as  they  apply 
to  him,  and  in  substituting  another  and  better 
process  in  its  place ! 

But  has  not  Huxley,  now,  got  us  into  a  worse 

'  See  Evolution  and  Ethics,  page  83. 


Conditional  Immortality  259 

dilemma  than  that  created  by  the  thorough-going 
evolutionist  who  declares  that  the  humanitarian- 
ism  of  our  time,  which  uses  up  the  fit  and  preserves 
the   unfit,    means   progressive   degeneration   and 
thus  ultimate  extinction  of  the  race?     Look  at 
some  of  the  propositions  that  are  necessarily  in- 
volved in  Huxley's  doctrine!    In  the  first  place 
his  statements  assert  an  out-and-out  "breach  of 
continuity  between  evolution  in  general  and  the 
evolution  of  man  in  particular"  '-a  fact  abhorrent 
to  the  modern  scientific  mind  which  is  convinced 
by  a  thousand  evidences,  that  nature  constitutes 
an  unbroken  unity  throughout!     Secondly,  thev 
involve    the   flat   assumption   that    the   natural 
processes,  outside  of  those  which  man  determines 
are  essentially  immoral,  and  that  the  social  pro- 
gress of  humanity  constitutes  an  indictment  of 
God  s  universe.    Lastly,  there  is  raised  the  ques- 
tion, to  which  Huxley  never  succeeded  in  finding 
an  answer,  as  to  where  man  got  the  ethical  emo- 
tions which  persuade  him  to  interfere  with  nature's 
law  of  survival,  if  not  from  the  world  below  him? 
Ihe   moral   sentiments  of   humanity   have  un- 
doubtedly been  evolved,  says  Huxley;  no  miracu- 
lous or  supernatural  accounts  of  their  origin  are 
admissible!    But  if  evolved,  there  remains  the 
question,  from  what?    Can  the  moral  evolve  from 
the  immoral,  sacrifice  from  self-assertion,  love  from 
hate?    If  there  is  no  natural  sanction  for  morality 
then  IS  It  not  as  plain  as  day  that  the  sanction 

•  See  John  Fiske,  Through  Nature  to  Cod.  page  76. 


26o 


Is  Death  the  End  > 


must  be  supernatural?  And  behold  the  spectacle 
which  convulsed  the  scientific  world  of  the  early 
'go's— Thomas  Huxley,  the  original  agnostic,  ap- 
propriated by  orthodox  theologians  everywhere  as 
an  ally  of  supernatural  Christianity! 

It  was  the  impossibility,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
absurdity,  of  this  situation,  which  led  to  a  fresh 
study  of  this  perplexing  problem  by  evolutionists 
everywhere— with   the   result   that  hitherto  un- 
known or  neglected  facts  were  speedily  discovered, 
and  a  new  reading  of  cosmic  history  produced' 
Such  writings  as  Henry  Drummond's  The  Ascent  of 
Man,  P.  Kropotkin's  Mntiial  Aid  a  Factor  of  Evolu- 
tion, and  John  Fiske's  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration 
on   The  Cosmic  Roots  of  Love  and  Self -Sacrifice, ' 
tell  the  story  of  this  new  chapter  of  evolution,  the 
meaning  of  which  can  be  summed  up  in  the  simple 
statement  that  the  cosmic  process  involves  not 
merely  the  factor  of  the  struggle  for  life,  but,  side 
by  side  with  this,  and  ever  growing  in  importance 
the  complementary  factor  of  the  struggle  for  the 
life  of  others. 

As  the  story  of  evolution  is  usually  told  [says 
Drummond,  whose  statement  is  perhaps  the  most 
striking  yet  produced],  love  ...  has  not  even  a  place. 
Almost  the  whole  emphasis  of  science  has  fallen  upon 
the  opposite— the  animal  struggle  for  life.  Hunger 
was  early  seen  by  the  naturalists  to  be  the  first  and 
most  imperious  appetite  of  all  living  thfngs,  and  the 

■  Published  as  the  second  essay  in  Through  Nature  to  God 
pages?.  • 


■SA^'^^*&agi*sM^fes4-,.->'-. 


Conditional  Immortality  261 

course  of  nature  came  to  be  erroneously  interpreted 
m  terms  of  never-ending  strife.  Since  there  are  vastiv 
more  creatures  born  than  can  ever  survive,  since  for 
every  morsel  of  food  provided  a  hundred  claimants 
appear,  hfe  to  an  animal  was  described  to  us  as  one 
long  tragedy,  and  poetry,  borrowing  the  imperfect 
creed,  pictured  nature  as  a  blood-red  fang  To 

interpret  the  whole  course  of  nature  by  the  struggle 
for  hfe,  however,  is  as  absurd  as  if  one  were  to  define 

JmI  T*Tx,°^  ^'-  ^""^""^  ^y  the  tempers  of  his 
childhood  Worids  grow  up  as  well  as  infants,  their 
tempers  change,  their  better  nature  opens  out,  new 
objects  of  desire  appear,  higher  activities  are  added 
to  the  lower.  The  first  chapter  or  two  of  the  story  of 
evolution  may  be  headed  the  Struggle  for  Life;  but 
take  the  book  as  a  whole  and  it  is  not  a  tale  of  battle 
It  is  a  love  story. ' 

Illustrations  of  this  great  truth,  at  first  almost 
unseen,  are  now  so  abundant  as  to  be  almost 
embarrassing.     Co-operation,  mutual  helpfulness 
struggle  not  for  self  but  for  others,  is  everywhere 
present   in   nature  and  apparently  as   basic  in 
character  as  the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  The 
flower  co-operates  with  the  bee,  and  the  bee  with 
the  flower,  in  the  great  task  of  survival.    Beetles 
assist  each  other  in  burying  their  eggs,  many 
caterpillars  weave  in  common,  bees  hve  in  hives 
and  ants  in  colonies.    Birds  are  so  conspicuously 
bound  by  ties  of  what  seem  to  be  loyalty  and 
affection  as  to  have  served  in  all  ages  as  the  poetic 

*  The  Ascent  of  Man,  page  217. 


262 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


symbol  of  love.      A  myriad  of  animals— beavers, 
wolves,  deer,  buffaloes,  horses,  sheep,  elephants, 
giraffes— work  and  hunt  together,  and  thus  sus- 
tain their  life  in  common.    Indeed,  the  gregarious 
and  social  animals  have  an  immense  preponderance 
over  all  others,  the  carnivora  being  comparatively 
few  in  number  and  very  obviously  also  falling 
behind  in  the  struggle  for  survival. '    Instances  of 
sympathy  and  self-sacrificing  kindness  among  the 
brutes  crowd  the  pages  of  natural  history  Htera- 
ture.      The   sand-wasp   laboriously  laying   up   a 
provision  of  fresh  food  in  a  sealed  store-house  for 
the  offspring  which  it  is  never  to  behold,   the 
nightingale    feeding    the    mother-bird    regularly 
while  she  is  sitting  on  her  nest,  the  dog  mothering 
the  orphaned  kittens  committed  to  her  charge, 
the  lioness  leaping  at  the  spear  which  is  hurled  at 
her  cubs— these  are  familiar  types  of  family  devo- 
tion in  nature.    Nor  are  such  examples  confined  to 
expressions  of  the  maternal  or  paternal  instinct. 
It  is  well  known  that  ants  will  come  to  the  rescue 
of  their  fellows,  at  the  peril  of  their  own  lives, 
when  disaster  has  swept  down  upon  the  colony. 
When  buffaloes,  deer,  or  elephants  are  attacked, 
the  males  will  put  the  females  and  the  young  be- 
hind some  shelter  and  themselves  advance  against 
the  enemy.    Romanes  tells  a  well-authenticated 
story  of  a  monkey  on  shipboard  who  threw  a 
cord,  one  end  of  which  was  tied  to  his  own  body, 

^  It  is  noteworthy  that  it  is  these  animals  which  Huxley  cites 
as  representing  the  successful  types  in  the  competitions  of  nature. 


Conditional  Immortality         263 

to  a  companion  monkey  which  had  fallen  over- 
board. '  Thomas  Edward,  the  Scotch  naturahst 
saw  a  tern,  which  he  had  wounded  so  that  it  could 
not  fly,  lifted  up  by  two  of  its  comrades  and  car- 
ried to  a  rock  in  the  sea  beyond  his  reach. '  Darwin 
relates,  m  his  Descent  of  Man,  the  now  famous 
story  of  the  baboons  in  Abyssinia. 

Some  of  the  troop  [he  says]  had  already  ascended 
the  opposite  mountain,  and  some  were  still  in  the 
valley.    The  latter  were  attacked  by  the  dogs,  but  the 
old  males  immediately  hurried  down  from  the  rocks 
and  with  mouths  widely  open,  roared  so  fearfully,  that 
the  dogs  quickly  drew  back.     They  were  again  en- 
couraged to  the  attack;  but  by  this  time  all  the 
baboons   had   reascended   the  heights,   excepting  a 
young  one,  about  six  months  old,  who,  loudly  calling 
for  aid    climbed  on  a  block  of  rock,  and  was  sur- 
rounded.    Now  one  of  the  largest  males,  a  true  hero 
came  down  again  from  the  mountain,  slowly  went  to 
the  young  one,  coaxed  him,  and  triumphantly  led  him 
away— the  dogs  being  too  much  astonished  to  make 
an  attack.^ 

Right  here,  in  such  illustrations  as  these  which 
could  be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely,  do  we  find 
that  moral  element  in  the  cosmic  process,  which 
Huxley  mistakenly  declared  did  not  exist.  Side 
by  side,  from  the  very  beginning,  with  the  fierce 

*  See  Animal  Intelligence,  page  475. 

Tu  ^'^f  ^^  ^^"^^^  ^-  ^^^^y*  ^"  ^^^  ^^  World  and  the  New 
1  nought,  page  46,  where  an  abundance  of  these  stories  may  be 

°^"^*  ^  See  The  Descent  of  Man,  page  102. 


264 


Is  Death  the  End? 


struggle  for  life,  and  ever  tending  to  supersede  it, 
is  the  struggle  for  the  life  of  others.     "Beside 
[this],'*  says  Drummond,  ''the  struggle  for  life  is 
but  a  passing  phase.     As  old,  as  deeply  sunk  in 
nature,  this  further  force  was  destined  from  the 
first  to  replace  the  struggle  for  life,  and  to  build  a 
nobler  superstructure  on  the  foundations  which  it 
laid."'    And  right  here,  in  this  mighty  factor  of 
the  evolutionary  development,   do  we  find  that 
origin  of  man's  ethical  passion  which,  from  Hux- 
ley's standpoint,   remained  unexplained  on  any 
other    than    out-and-out    supernatural    grounds. 
There  is  no  break,  after  all,  in  the  continuity  of  the 
cosmic  process.     Man  is  not  defying,  combating, 
interfering  with,  and  at  last  reversing  the  law  by 
which  Hfe  has  been  developing  through  the  stages 
of  evolution  beneath  himself.    On  the  contrary,  in 
his  tenderness  for  the  weak  and  his  protection  of 
the  helpless,  in  his  noblest  service  for  his  fellows, 
in  his  sublimest  sacrifice  ''for  others'  sakes,"  he  has 
been  acting  in  accordance  with  a  principle  as  deep- 
rooted  as  that  of  natural  selection  itself,  and  so 
much  more  basic  in  the  entire  process  from  top  to 
bottom  that  long  before  the  line  of  development 
had  mounted  to  his  level,  the  law  of  tooth  and 
claw  had  been  superseded,  and  the  law  of  love  and 
sacrifice  installed  in  its  place.    In  him  the  cosmic 
process  finds  not  its  end,  but  its  fulfilment.     Not 
sheer  brute  strength  is  the  condition  of  survival. 
Else  why  have  all  "the  dragons  of  the  prime"  who 

'See  The  Ascent  of  Man,  page  214. 


Conditional  Immortality  265 

^  ''tear  each  other  in  their  slime"— the  ichthyo- 
sauri, dinosauria,  theriosauria,  mammoths,  and  the 
rest— long    since   disappeared,    and    animals   in- 
finitely feebler  and  smaller  physically,  but  socially 
and  mutually  helpful  by  nature,   survived  and 
multiplied  .>    It  is  love  that  counts,  even  with  the 
brutes  that  rend  and  tear;  and  man  is  the  highest 
of  the  brutes,  and  the  truest  revelation  of  the  real 
meaning  of  the  cosmic  process,  because  with  him 
love  counts  the  most!     In  him  do  we  find  the 
justification  and  not  the  contradiction  of  nature's 
workings— the  proof  that  the  cosmic  process  seeks 
to  save,  and  not  to  destroy ! 

The  moral  sentiments,  the  moral  law,  devotion  to 
unselfish    ends,    disinterested    love  .  .  .  these    [says 
John    Fiske,   in   one   of    his   noblest    passages]   are 
nature's  most  highly-wrought  products,  latest  in  com- 
ing to  maturity;  they  are  the  consummation  toward 
which  all  earlier  prophecy  has  pointed.  .  .  .  Below 
the  surface  din  and  clashing  of  the  struggle  for  life 
we  hear  the  undertone  of  the  deep  ethical  purpose,  as 
it  rolls  in  solemn  music  through  the  ages,  its  volume 
swelled  by  every  victory,  great  or  small,  of  right  over 
wrong,  till  in  the  fullness  of  time,  in  God's  own  time, 
it   shall    burst   forth   in   the   triumphant   chorus   of 
humanity  purified  and  redeemed.' 

VII 

In  all  of  this,  now,  do  we  see  the  definite  super- 
session of  natural  selection,  as  the  principle  of 

'  See  Through  Nature  to  God,  page  130. 


^a*^4*^««&««Mafca«ttSftia^iBis;.2s: 


266 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


survival   through   the   struggle  for  life,   by   the 
deeply   moral  principle   of  the   struggle  for  the 
life  of  others.    And  with  this  does  there  disappear, 
for  good  and  all,  the  last  argument  that  can  be 
raised  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  of  conditional 
immortality.     The  essence  of  this  argument  was 
the  contention  that  what  was  true  in  the  physical 
realm  must  be  true  also  in  the  spiritual.     The 
struggle  of  the  many  and  the  survival  of  the  few 
seemed   the  dominant   principle   of  existence  in 
this  world,  and  therefore  must  this  continue  as  the 
dominant  principle  of  existence  in  the  world  to 
come!    But  now  we  see  that  we  have  been  mis- 
taken in  our  observation  of  nature's  workings. 
Not  the  struggle  for  the  survival  of  self,  but  the 
struggle  for  the  survival  of  others  has  been  the 
basic  law  of  the  cosmic  process,  and  in  the  noble 
sacnfices  of  the  strong  man  for  his  weaker  brothers 
do  we  see  this  law  come  at  last  to  its  fulfilment. 
To  save  even  the  weakest  from  destruction— this 
has  been  the  end  and  aim  of  life  in  all  its  varied 
forms  in  this  present  world,  from  the  ooze  and 
sHme  of  primeval  days  upon  the  one  hand  to  the 
glorious  heights  of  ethical  achievement  to  which 
the  race  has  now  attained  upon  the  other.    And 
shall  not  this  process  go  on  to  ever  larger  issues 
and  nobler  triumphs  in  the  world  that  is  to  come.? 
What  is  it  that  is  seen  in  the  essentially  moral  ends 
of  the  evolutionary  process— the  tenderness  of  the 
male  tiger  for  his  mate,  the  love  of  the  female  bear 
for  her  cubs,  the  co-operation  of  the  beetle  and  the 


Conditional  Immortality  267 

ant,  the  mutual  helpfulness  of  sheep  and  deer 
the  domestic  loyahy  of  the  birds— but  the  spirit  of 
God  working  itself  out  in  the  creative  processes  of 
his  divme  handiwork!  What  is  it  that  is  seen  in 
the  subhme  heroisms  of  human  life— the  mother 
suffering  for  her  child,  the  patriot  bleeding  for  his 
country,  the  martyr  dying  for  his  cause— but  the 
spirit  of  God  coming  at  last  unto  its  own ! 

The  picket  frozen  on  duty. 

The  mother  starved  for  her  brood, 

Socrates  drinking  the  hemlock. 

And  Jesus  on  the  rood; 

The  millions,  who  humble  and  nameless, 

The  straight,  hard  pathway  trod. 

Some  call  it  consecration— and  others  call  it  God! 

God  indeed!     The  perpetual  atonement  of  the 
Most  High  for  the  salvation  of  the  lives  which  he 
has  made!    And  shall  God  not  continue,  in  the 
world  to  come,  the  work  which  he  has  begun  here, 
and  carry  this  work  at  last  to  its  completion  ?    If 
pelicans  can  feed  a  blind  comrade  with  fish  brought 
many  miles,'  if  a  baboon  can  rush  into  a  pack  of 
raging  dogs  and  rescue  a  fellow-monkey  at  the 
risk  of  his  own  life,  if  Titus  Gates  can  walk  out  to 
his  certain  death  in  the  freezing  storm  that  his 
enfeebled  companions  may  not  be  hampered  by 
his  disability— shall  not  God  strive  on,  with  the 
patience  of  an  infinite  love,  to  the  salvation  of  even 
the  least  among  his  children?    The  struggle  for 

•  See  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man,  page  102. 


268 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


the  lives  of  others  is  God's  struggle,  the  compassion 
of  the  cosmic  process  is  his  compassion,  the  sacri- 
fices of  humanity  are  his  sacrifices.    And  as  surely 
as  these  manifest  his  desire  that  no  living  thing 
shall  die  in  vain,  but  all  be  preserved  to  the  service 
of  the  whole,   so  surely  they  manifest  also  his 
purpose  that  no  human  soul  shall  perish,  but  all 
be  similarly  preserved  to  the  service  of  his  eternal 
Kingdom.     The  cosmic  process  may  mean  condi- 
tional immortality.    But  the  ethical  process  means 
universalism.       Whether    we    follow    Huxley    or 
Fiske  or  Drummond,  this  ethical  process  is  alike 
supreme,    and    immortality    therefore    extended 
unto  all! 

VIII 

And  does  not  this  give  one  final  intimation  of 
the  reality  of  the  eternal  hope— one  final  proof  of 
the  truth  of  immortahty?    If  evolution,  as  inter- 
preted ethically,  means  anything  at  all,  it  means 
that  God  yearns  to  preserve  every  living  soul. 
But  if  this  life  is  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  existence, 
success  is  impossible.    The  low  grade  of  the  great 
bulk  of  human  existence  shows  that,  from  this 
standpoint,  God  is  doomed  to  failure.    He  needs 
time  to  accomplish  his  purpose,  time  to  bring  the 
irresistible  influences  of  his  spirit  to  bear  upon 
mankind,  time  to  lift  up  all  men  unto  himself! 
And  is  it  not  just  this  needful  time  that  is  given  us 
by  the  conception  of  immortality?    Here,  indeed, 


Conditional  Immortality  269 

is  the  great  significance  of  the  immortal  hope.     It 
gives  time  for  God  to  accomplish  that  purpose 
which  must  be  accomplished  if  he  is  to  justify  his 
wisdom.    It  gives  the  chance  which  God  must  have 
to  save  all  men  who  must  be  saved  if  the  universe 
is  not  to  be  revealed  as  an  immoral  waste  of  life 
and  love.    The  whole  interpretation  of  the  cosmic 
process  in  terms  of  mutual  helpfulness  leads  inevi- 
tably to  universalism  as  the  only  possible  condi- 
tion of  its  fulfilment.     And  universalism,  by  the 
same   token,   leads  inevitably  to  immortality  as 
the  only  possible  condition  of  its  fulfilment.     Dr. 
George  A.   Gordon  has  summed  it  all  up  in  a 
splendid  passage  in  his  Immortality  and  the  New 
Theodicy, 

The  mass  of  humanity  which  (evolution)  rolls  into 
the  field  of  vision  is  so  great  that  the  moral  conception 
of  the  universe  must  either  rise  to  meet  the  new 
emergency  or  perish.    If  the  moral  view  of  man's  life 
shall  insist  upon  identifying  itself  with  theories  of  the 
remnant,  election,  or  probation  confined  to  this  life, 
it  is  simply  taking  steps  to  destroy  itself.    For  no  man 
in  his  senses  can  survey  the  bewildering  total  of 
humanity  that  evolution  puts  before  him,  and  admit 
that  the  saving  interest  of  God  in  mankind  ceases  at 
death,  and  still  believe  that  God  is  a  moral  being. 
It  is  either  something  other  and  infinitely  better  than 
this,  or  it  is  nothing.  .  .  .  Either  this  world  is  a 
moral  world,  or  it  is  not;  if  it  is  a  moral  world,  the 
Creator's  redeeming  interest  in  mankind  must  con- 
tinue forever.^ 

^  See  Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy,  pages  87,  88. 


270 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


IX 


The  theory  of  conditional  immortality,  there- 
fore, stands  utterly  discredited.     If  eternal  life  is 
true  at  all,  it  is  true  for  all!    Nor  does  this  conclu- 
sion involve  a  sacrifice  of  that  moral  content  of 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  life  which  seemed  to  be 
peculiarly  the  possession  of  the  conditional  theory 
of  immortality.    Indeed,  no  greater  mistake  could 
be  made  than  to  regard  universalism  as  implying 
an  indifference  to  sin  and  its  dreadful  consequences. 
To  assert  that  all  men  are  immortal  does  not  in  any 
sense  involve  the  assertion  that  sinful  men  are  to 
escape  the  penalties  of  their  sin.     It  is  simply  to 
declare  that  this  penalty  is  not  destruction.    For 
the  universaHst,   exactly  as   for  the   believer  in 
eternal  torment  or  selective  annihilation,  sin  brings 
its  merited  punishment,  and  the  longer  it  continues 
and^  the  deeper  it  goes,   the  more  terrible  the 
punishment  and  the  longer  postponed  the  hour  of 
recovery.     But  the  punishment  comes  to  purify 
and  not  avenge,  to  save  and  not  cast  out,  to  fulfil 
and  not  destroy.     ^'God  is  not  mocked"  that  he 
should  be  successfully  defied  by  men.    His  perfect 
love  cannot  be  doomed  to  failure  in  any  single 
instance.    Sooner  or  later  he  must  overcome  and 
win  to  its  own  redemption  even  the  most  obdurate 
heart.     Thus    does    universalism    retain  all   the 
moral  aspects  characteristic  of  the  more  rigorous 
doctrines  of  the  future  Hfe,  and  at  the  same  time 
eliminate  the  twin  horror  of  a  defeated  deity  and 


Conditional  Immortality  271 

a  stricken  child!  No  guilt  is  pardoned,  no  stain 
ignored,  no  wages  of  sin  unpaid!  But  the  crown- 
ing triumph  of  an  undivided  and  reconciled 
humanity  is  attained ! 

Universalism  signifies  that  God  is  omnipotent— 
that  the  divine  love  is  not  in  vain— that  the  cosmic 
process  is  moved  by  moral  forces  unto  moral  ends! 
It  is  at  bottom  the  guarantee  of  the  rationality, 
the  beauty,  and  the  goodness  of  the  world  and  of 
all  its  teeming  forms  of  life  from  the  earliest 
amoeba  to  the  latest  man.  With  this  great  faith 
forever  planted  in  our  hearts,  we  shall  not  find  it 
difficult  to 

.  .  .  trust  that  somehow  good 

Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill. 

To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will. 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood, 

That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain. 
That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 
Is  shrivelled  in  a  fruitless  fire. 

Or  but  subserves  another's  gain. 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet, 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed. 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 

When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHAT  WILL  IMMORTALITY  BE  LIKE? 

"Nothing  can  be  more  opposed  to  every  estimate 
we  can  form  of  probability  than  the  common  idea  of 
the  future  life.  ...  All  the  probabilities  in  the  case  of 
a  future  life  are  that  such  as  we  have  been  made  or 
have  made  ourselves  before  the  change,  such  we  shall 
enter  into  the  life  hereafter;  and  that  the  fact  of  death 
will  make  no  sudden  break  in  our  spiritual  life.  If 
there  be  a  future  life,  it  will  be  at  least  as  good  as  the 
present,  and  will  not  be  wanting  in  the  best  feature  of 
the  present  life,  improvability  by  our  own  efforts." — 
John  Stuart  Mill,  in  Essay  on  Theism,  Part  III. 

THE  question,  Is  death  the  end?  has  now  been 
answered,  in  so  far  as  such  an  answer  is 
possible.  We  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  all 
indications  point  not  merely  to  the  possibility,  or 
even  probabiHty,  but  also  to  the  practical  cer- 
tainty, of  the  continuance  of  personal  existence 
after  death.  We  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to 
assert  that  the  argument  for  this  hypothesis  of 
immortality  is  so  strong  that  it  can  justly  be 
characterized  as  a  "proof.'*  And  this  eternal  life 
we  have  furthermore  declared  to  be  unconditioned, 
and  thus  the  natural  inheritance  of  all  men,  as  the 
children  of  the  ever-living  and  ever-loving  God. 

272 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ? 


273 


These  conclusions,  however,  have  by  no  means 
brought  us  to  the  end  of  our  discussion.  The  verv 
positiveness  of  our  affirmation  has  only  served  to 
raise  other  and  deeper  problems.  And  first  among 
them  all  is  the  very  practical  inquiry  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  immortal  hfe.  What,  in  other  words 
will  immortality  be  hke? 

Until  comparatively  recent  times,  this  question 
was  more  generally  and  seriously  considered  than 
It  ever  IS  at  the  present  day.  In  the  medieval  and 
early  Protestant  eras,  of  course,  the  fact  of  eternal 

TJnt,-W.'  1  everywhere  taken  for  granted. 

Until  the  period  of  the  Illumination  in  the  eigh- 
teenth  century,   discussion   of  the   matter  as  a 
problen.  for  debate  was  almost  unknown,  and 
when,  for  any  reason,  it  was  broached,  it  was 
instantly  silenced  as  a  sign  of  heresy.    This  does 
not  mean  that  there  was  no  writing  or  talking 
about  the  future  world.     On  the  contrary,  such 
discussion  was  of  the  liveliest  kind.    But  instead  of 
dealing  with  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  we 
are  destined  to  immortality,  it  passed  on  to  the 
remoter  question  as  to  what  this  immortahty  will 
be  hke.     In  this  field  speculation  was  free,  and 
therefore  abundant. 

In  recent  times,  however,  all  this  has  changed. 
The  scientific  and  philosophical  revolutions  of  the 
last  half-century,  as  we  have  seen,  shook  man's 
belief  m  the  aemal  life  to  its  foundations.    Old 


274 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


ideas   vanished   like   mist   before   the   sun.     Old 
viewpoints  were  shown  to  be  untenable,  and  there- 
fore abandoned.     New  facts  swept  down  upon 
man's  mind  like  an  avalanche,  and  buried  in  one 
stupendous  ruin  the  former  clearings  and  edifices 
of  his  faith.     Everything  familiar  and  precious 
was  apparently  destroyed.     And  now,   like  the 
citizens  of  a  lost  village,  was  he  confronted  by  the 
stupendous  task  of  reconstructing  the  structure 
of  his  religious  thought  from  the  ground  up.    To 
this  work  did  man  set  himself,  with  grim  deter- 
mination; and  for  a  full  generation  did  he  busy 
himself  with  the  discouraging  labour  of  clearing 
away  debris  and  laying  new  foundations.    Are  we 
im.mortal  at  all,  was  the  question  which  now  beset 
him,  as  it  beset  his  progenitors  in  the  earliest  dawn 
of  the  world's  life.     And  so  fully  occupied  has  he 
been  with  this  initial  and  basic  problem,  and  so 
far  has  he  come  from  working  out  any  satisfactory 
solution,  that  he  has  simply  been  unable  to  ad- 
vance to  any  later  stages  of  cosmic  speculation. 
Today,  however,  the    scene  is   changing  once 
again.    Man  has  succeeded  in  his  labour.    The  old 
faith  in  immortaHty  is  re-establishing  itself  upon 
new  and  firm  foundations.     Again  we  challenge 
death!     Again  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  eternal! 
And  with  this  settlement  of  the  ancient  problem 
achieved,  there  comes  again  a  shifting  of  the  field 
of    speculation.      Taking    the    immortal    life    for 
granted,  as  in  the  olden  time,  we  again  give  our- 
selves to  the  task  of  trying  to  pierce  the  veil  and 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    275 

look  upon  the  undiscovered  country  which  await. 

tahty  be  like!  And  this  we  do,  be  it  noted,  from 
no  mere  sense  of  idle  curiosity !  Such  an  inq;iry  I 
unavoidable.  The  r^sons  for  our  faith  are  new 
Must  not  the  content  of  this  faith  be  new  a"  S 
If  here  is  Ja  new  earth, "  must  there  not  likewise 
be  a  new  heaven " ;  and  may  we  not  rightly  as^t" 
see  the  one  as  well  as  the  other? 


II 

North   Amencan   Indians-the   Happy  Hunting 
beyond  the  western  mountains,  full  of  trees  and 

Sbuffir";  ?  ^T'  ^"'^  P'^"«^^"y  stocked 
with  buffalo  and  deer  for  the  chase.    Scarcely  less 

famihar  ,s  the  idea  of  the  next  world  which  was 

chenshed  by  the  Norsemen  of  Scandinavfa     TW 

called  Valhalla,  mto  which  were  admitted  only 
those  who  as  valiant  warriors  had  ended  thZ 
days  upon  the  field  of  battle,  and  in  which  fighthig 
feastmg.  and  drinking  were  the  eternal  pastxme   of 

txons  r"-    "if'  "  ^^^"^  "^y  --  'he  concep- 
tions of  immortahty  portrayed  in  the  mythological 

hterature  of  the  Greeks-conceptions  which  are 
variously  typified  by  such  names  as  the  Garden  o 
the  Hespendes,  the  Happy  Countrj.  of  the  Hyper- 


276 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


boreans,  the  Islands  of  the  Blest,  and  the  Elysian 
Fields.    Fully  as  impressive  and  far  more  rational 
than  these  legendary  ideas  is  the  description  of 
the  future  given  us  by  Plato,  in  his  Dialogue  en- 
titled Phaedo.     Here  do  we  find  heaven  depicted 
as  a  kind  of  glorified  earth,  where  the  blessings  of 
this  present  world  are  retained  and  magnified,  and 
its  attendant  ills  forever  banished.    Nor  should  we 
forget  the  Mohammedan  picture  of  the  life  beyond 
the  grave  in  the  Koran— a.  paradise  of  gardens, 
shaded  by  trees,  refreshed  by  sparkling  fountains, 
and    crowded    with    ''beautiful   damsels,    having 
complexions  like  rubies  and  pearls,"  the  whole 
seeming  more  like  some  gorgeous  scene  in  the 
Thousand  and  One  Nights  than  the  content  of  a 
great  book  of  revealed  religion ! 

All  these  are  pagan  conceptions  of  the  next 
world.    Of  more  immediate  interest  are  the  various 
ideas  which  are  characteristic  of  our  own  Christian- 
ity.   Strangely  enough,  in  the  recorded  teachings 
of  those  two  great  leaders,  Jesus  and  Paul,  with 
whom  the  Christian  Church  had  its  beginning,  we 
find  no  precise  descriptions  of  the  Hfe  to  come. 
Both  men  taught  with  unmistakable  conviction 
the  doctrine  of  immortality,  but,  apart  from  a  few 
vague  references  here  and  there,  gave  not  a  hint 
of  what  they  thought  or  hoped  the  future  would  be 
like.    The  first  definite  description  of  heaven  to  be 
found  in  early  Christian  Hterature  is  that  con- 
tained in  the  concluding  chapters  of  Revelation, 
and  here,  it  may  be  said,  we  get  a  wealth  of  par- 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    277 

ticulars  which  goes  far  toward  making  up  for  the 
deficiencies  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  The 
vision  of  the  "new  heaven,-  which  is  present^^^ 

That  :h??^^^"' ''  ^^^  ^^  ^^^^  amazing';rs  o, 
that  the  dimensions  of  ''the  holy  city''  are  all 

given  m  exact  figures.    Then  follows  a  picture  o 

almost  indescribable  splendour  and  beauty      T^^^^ 

wans  of  the  city  are  made  of  Jasper,  the  foundt 

o^es  '''The  1  "''  f  "^""^^  ^^  P---^ 
of^  W  Jur^  "  "'"  '^  P'"^^'  ^^^  '^^  ^ity  itself 
of    pure  gold,  like  unto  clear  glass. "     Through  the 

midst  of  the  city  runs  "a  pure  river  of  Tat  o 

i  iife    wh-  T  f '"  "'^  ^'  ^'^  ^^'^  --  ^he  tree 

y LmS   he"  f     r  '""^"^  "^^""^^  ^^  '^^^>  and 
yielded   her   fruit   every   month."  ^     These    are 

y^rall'' ^  rr^^^  "^^'^^^    ^'    ^^^     '-W 
iT  u    ^''^    "^^^    '"^^    ^n    vision    by    St 

kZI  ''^  '"'"   '^^  P^^^^--    -^    the 

The  traditional  Christian  idea  of  heaven  how- 
ever,  comes  not  so  much  from  this  book  ofkl7a- 
t^onas  from  the  descriptions  of  the  future  Zrld 

^IvTf"  ^:^,^  Y^^^^-^  ^ost.    Or  rather  shall  we 
say  that  in  the  stupendous  works  of  these  two  sur- 

and  the  other  a  Protestant  Englishman,  the  Chris- 

^  Strictly  speaking,   in   the  beginning,  a   "new  earth  "  h,  f 
speedily  regarded  as  a  picture  of  the  life  lo  come  '      '"' 

bee  Revelation  xxi  and  xxii. 


278 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


tian  conceptions  of  the  life  to  come  found  their 
perfect  and  final  expression? 

Dante's  description  of  heaven  is  found  in  the 
third  division  of  the  Divine  Comedy— the  Paradiso. 
While  going  into  few  of  the  materialistic  details  so 
characteristic  of  Revelation,  the  poet  succeeds  in 
giving  an  overwhelming  impression,  in  the  course 
of  his  long  narrative,  of  light  supernal  and  glory 
ineffable.      Everywhere    are    the    spirits    of    the 
blessed,  bathed  in  the  radiant  effulgence  of  the 
divine  splendour  as  we  on  the  earth  are  bathed 
in  the  atmosphere,  and,  in  their  eternal  contempla- 
tion and  worship  of  the  Triune  God,  experiencing 
nothing  but  ecstasy  and  peace.    It  is  in  the  thirty- 
first  canto,  where  Dante  sees  ''the  saintly  host 
displayed  in  fashion  as  of  a  snow-white  rose, "  and 
*'that  other  host,  that  flying  sees  and  sings  the 
glory  of  Him,"  that  the  poem  reaches  its  climax. 

Their  faces  had  they  all  of  living  flame, 
And  wings  of  gold,  and  all  the  rest  so  white 
No  snow  unto  that  limit  doth  attain. 
From  bench  to  bench,  into  the  flower  descending, 
They  carried  something  of  the  peace  and  ardour 
Which  by  the  fanning  of  their  flanks  they  won. 
• 

This  realm  secure  and  full  of  gladsomeness, 
Crowded  with  ancient  people  and  with  modern, 
Unto  one  mark  had  all  its  look  and  love. ' 

Milton's  description  of  heaven  is  more  material- 
istic but  no  less  splendid  than  that  of  the  great 

'  See  LongfeUow's  translation,  Canto  XXXI,  lines  1-27. 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    279 

Italian.  He  pictures  it  as  a  place  builded  of 
precious  stones,  flooded  with  light,  and  every- 
where made  beautiful  with  trees,  rivers,  and  cluster- 
ing flowers.  In  the  centre  is  the  throne  of  God 
and  all  about  are  the  hosts  of  angels,  who,  clothed 
in  robes  of  dazzling  white  and  equipped  with  harps 
of  gold,  busy  themselves  with  chanting  the  eternal 
praises  of  the  Most  High. 

Looking  reverent 
•  .  .  they  bow,  and  to  the  ground 

With  solemn  adoration  down  they  cast 

Their  crowns,  inwove  with  amarant  and  gold— 

Now  in  loose  garlands  thick  thrown  off,  the  bright 

Pavement,  that  like  a  sea  of  jasper  shown, 

Impurpled  with  celestial  roses  smiled. 

Then,  crowned  again,  their  golden  harps  they  took- 

•  .  .  and  with  preamble  sweet 

Of  charming  symphony  they  introduce 

Their  sacred  song,  and  waken  raptures  high 

No  voice  exempt,  no  voice  but  well  could  join 

Melodious  part;  such  concord  is  in  Heaven.' 

Such  are  some  of  the  more  familiar  pictures 
which  have  been  conceived  and  drawn  of  the 
future  world !  Nobody  can  survey  these  ideas. 
1  believe,  without  being  impressed  at  once  with 
their  stnking,  almost  monotonous,  similarity. 
Fagan  or  Christian  in  origin,  it  makes  little  dif- 
ference !  They  are  all  so  much  alike  as  hardly  to  be 
distinguished  from  one  another.  Read  in  im- 
mediate succession,  for  example,  Plato's  descrip- 

'  See  Paradise  Lost,  Book  III,  lines  349-71. 


::^^^^^^i|e4.. 


280 


Is  Death  the  End? 


tion  of  heaven  in  the  Phaedo,  Mohammed's  in  the 
Koran,  and  St.  John's  in  Revelation,  and  who  that 
is  not  already  famihar  with  them  can  tell  the  one 
from  the  other,  or  grade  one  as  superior  to  another 
in  spiritual  meaning?     From  long  association  of 
Mohammedanism  with  much  that  is  bad  morally, 
at  least  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  western 
ethics,  we  instinctively  shrink  from  the  paradise  of 
the  Koran,  but  wherein,  on  the  whole,  is  this 
heaven  worse  than  that  depicted  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse ?    And  if,  on  the  basis  of  reasonable  probabil- 
ity merely,  we  were  called  upon  to  choose  between 
the  heaven  of  Milton  and  the  heaven  of  Plato,  who 
of  us  would  choose  that  of  the  Puritan  as  in  any 
marked  degree  the  superior  of  the  two?    However 
humiliating  it  may  be,  from  our  Christian  stand- 
point, to  confess  it,  candour  still  compels  us  to 
recognize  that  all  of  these  descriptions  of  immor- 
taUty  are  in  the  same  general  class  of  pietistic 
speculation,    and    that    the   judgment   which    is 
visited   upon   one  must,   in   all  consistency,   be 
visited  upon  all. 


Ill 


And  what  must  this  judgment  be?  Are  we  to 
suppose  today  that  the  immortal  life  is  anything 
like  what  is  presented  in  these  various  conceptions 
of  our  pagan  and  Christian  progenitors? 

First  of  all,  it  must  be  noted  that  all  these 
heavens  are  limited  in  their  character,  and  thus 


What  will  Immortahty  be  Like  ? 


281 


inconsistent  with  any  true  doctrine  of  universal- 
ism.    The  Happy  Hunting-Grounds  of  the  redskin 

deck  h  s  belt  with  the  scalps  of  his  fallen  enemies 
Valhalla  is  cbsed  to  all  who  have  not  met  a 
glonous  death  upon   the  field   of  battle.     The 
Mohammedan  paradise  is  likewise  restricted  to  the 
faithfuL     And  the  Christian  heaven  is  reserved 
for  the  hosts  of  the  redeemed.    All  this,  of  couT^e 
mvolves  a  theory  of  conditional  immortklity.  He H 
and  heaven  here  go  together  as  the  natural  com 
Plements  of  one  another.    And  as  we  have  re  ect^d 

st  sr  f '  '^" ''  ""^^"^"^^^  ^^°-  '^^  -2:1' 

deas  of  h    '    "^''Tx'/"  "^'°  "'''''  "^  ^^J^^t  these 
Ideas  of  heaven.    We  must  seek  a  new  conception 

of  the  worid  to  come,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  having 
somethmg  which  shall  be  open,  without  conditions! 
to  all  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men 

In  the  second  place,  we  must  notice  the  essential 
unreahty  of  these  pictures  of  the  future.    ItTs  a 
difficult  to  believe  that  these  conceptions  of  heaven 
are  true   as  we  have  already  found  it  difficult  to 

are  w     n  ^f  V"""''^^"'^^"^  conceptions  of  hell 
are  true     Details  are  not  lacking,  to  be  sure.    On 
the  contrary  it  is  amazing  to  see  the  extent  and 
accuracy  of  the  knowledge  which  men  have  again 
and  again  assumed  to  possess  of  this  realm  which 
lies  so  far  beyond  our  mortal  ken.    The  description 
ot  the     new  Jerusalem"  in  Revelation  has  all  the 
intricate  aspects  of  a  builder's  blue-print!  Dante's 
Paradtso,  like  his  Inferno  and  Purgatorio,  can  be 


...M^M^^kiirAbs 


282 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


mapped  as  carefully  as  any  section  of  our  earth ! 
In   Swedenborg's  Heaven  and  Hell,   we  find  an 
account  of  the  life  to  come  well-nigh  as  minute  as 
any  that  has  yet  been  given  of  the  lite  that  now  is. 
But    these    details   are   utterly   lacking   in    veri- 
simihtude !    They  are  not  such  as  are  recorded  by 
a  traveller  describing  a  distant  land  which  he  has 
explored,  or  by  a  naturaHst  describing  some  de- 
partment of  animal  life  which  he  has  observed; 
but  are  rather  such  as  are  set  down  by  a  romancer 
describing  some  happy  realm  of  dreams.    We  are 
reminded  in  reading  these  stories,  not  at  all  of  Asa 
Gray's  Principles  of  Botany,  or  Louis  Agassiz^s 
Field  Notes  of  a  Geologist,  or  Charles  Darwin's 
Voyage  of  the  Beagle,  but  inevitably  of  Schehere- 
zade's  tales  of  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  or 
Andrew  Lang's  multicoloured  fairy  books.  Every- 
thing has  the  air  of  unreality.     In  an  age  when 
anything  was  deemed  possible— when  tales  of  hide- 
ous dragons  in  the  western  seas,  of  huge  rocs  on 
mountain  tops  and  in  ravines,  of  monstrous  men 
with  heads  deep-set  between  their  shoulders,  of 
witches  bestriding  the  air  and  ghosts  besetting 
hearthstones,  were  heard  and  accepted  without 
dispute— this  fact  was  of  little  concern.    It  was  as 
natural  to  believe  these  narratives  of  the  future 
world  as  it  was   to  believe  a  hundred  and  one 
things  which  were  told  about  the  commonest  facts 
of  daily  life.    But  now  all  this  is  changed!    The 
mythological  habit  of  mind  has  yielded  place  to 
the  scientific.    Today  we  demand  observed  facts 


What  will  Immortahty  be  Like     2S3 

first  of  all,  and,  in  the  absence  of  such  facts,  hy- 
potheses  founded  upon  rational  probabilities.  The 
moden.  man  infinitely  prefers  uncertainty  and 
flat  Ignorance  to  any  illusions  of  the  imagination 
however  attractive.  Hence  the  discredit  which  has 
fallen  upon  such  conceptions  of  the  immortal  Se 
as  these  which  I  have  mentioned ' 

But  even  though  the  unreality  of  these  ideas 
were  not  so  obvious,  we  should  stfll  be  temptedt 
question  their  validity,  if  only  because  oVthdr 
crass  matenalism.  How  can  our  essentially  JZ 
ual  existence,  we  say,  be  hved  amid  surroundings 

how   heaven   is   always   described   as  a   distinct 
locahty  c.  place^   With  the  redskins  it  is  an  isllnd 
or  plam,  situated  beyond  the  western  verge  of  the 
horizon.    With  the  Norseman  it  is  a  hall  or  castle 
ocate,  above  the  clouds.    The  Elysian  FiSf  of 
the  Greeks  were  far  distant  in  lands  beyond  the 
sunset,  while  the  Islands  of  the  Blest  were  pLed 
on  the  extreme  border  of  the  world  by  the  bounds 
of  the  encirdmg  sea.     Plato's  heaven  is  nothing 
more  nor  ess  than  a  duplication,  on  a  grander  and 
more  perfect  scale,  of  our  present  abode.     The 

gardens     The  heaven  of  St.  John  is  a  city,  com- 
posed  of  buildings  and  streets,  and  girt  about 
with  walls     These  future  reatos,  that^  are  al 
defimte  places    which  could  be  plainly  marked 
upon  a  map  of  the  universe,  if  such  a  thing  were 

available.— And  what  kinH   nf  ^1  7    t 

^iiu   wLidz  Kind   ot   places  are  they? 


284 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Hopelessly  materialistic  in  every  feature!     Gold 
and  silver  in  abundance— precious  stones  as  com- 
mon as  flowers— rivers  and  trees,  milk  and  honey, 
everywhere!    Could  anything  be  more  sordid,  and 
therefore  more  debasing,  than  these  ideas  of  the 
hfe  to  come?   Could  there  be  any  more  extraordin- 
ary  combination   than   the   Christian   ethics   of 
temperance,  self-privation,  and  even  self-mortifi- 
cation, and  the  Christian  apocalypse  of  complete 
satisfaction  of  animal  desire!    The  gardens  and 
fruits  and  women  of  the  Mohammedan  paradise, 
we  have  long  since  learned  to  denounce  in  frank 
disgust.    But  wherein  is  this  dream  any  more  de- 
grading in  essence  than  the  golden  streets,  jewel- 
studded  gates,  and  rivers  of  water,  of  the  "holy 
city"  ol  Revelation! 

It  is  when  we  come  to  this  point  that  we  begin 
to  understand  the  origin  of  these  conceptions  of 
immortality,  and  thus  to  discover  their  real  sig- 
nificance. What  we  have  here,  in  these  descrip- 
tions of  eternal  life,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
projection  into  the  future  of  all  that  a  particular 
group  of  people  has  most  deeply  yearned  to  realize 
and  enjoy.  Heaven,  in  other  words,  is  conceived 
of  simply  as  a  place  where  all  human  wishes  are  to 
be  gratified,and  unalloyed  happiness  thusattained. 
As  the  famous  hne  from  the  Rubaiyat  puts  it 

Hoaven  is  the  vision  of  fulfilled  desire. 

This  means  that  each  particular  heaven  assumes 
inevitably  the  form  of  that  particular  kind  of  life 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like     285 

,^e!f   o'^  ""T'"^^^'  '^''  °^  "^"^  thinks  most 
Ideal     Once  discover  what  men  most  want  and 

you  have  at  the  same  time  discovered  their  doc- 
tnne  of  heaven!  Thus  the  North  American  In- 
dian s  consuming  passion  is  the  chase-hence  his 
heaven  is  a  great  hunting-ground  stocked  with  a 
never-ending  supply  of  buffalo  and  deer.  The 
Norseman  on  the  other  hand,  joys  in  fighting  and 
feasting-hence  his  heaven  is  an  uninterrupted 
succession  of  bloody  battles  by  day  and  riotous 
banquets  by  night.  The  Moslem  yearns  fo 
harems  and  gardens-hence  his  "bower"  beneath 

wllTrr-!""""-u  ^""^  '°  "'^°  "^^'^  Christianity! 
What  Chnstian  theologians  and  poets  were  try- 
ing to  affirm,    when  they  talked  about   walls  of 
jasper  and  gates  of  pearl,  about  angels  with  spotless 
robes    about  the  ineffable  flood  of  light  which 
blazed  about  the  redeemed,  as  they  stood  by  the 
great  white  throne  and  poured  forth  their  songs 
of  praise  to  God,  was  that  heaven  was  a  place 
where  every  desire  of  the  human  heart  for  happi- 
ness was  realised.     Most  men  lived  upon  earth 
amid  ugly  and  squalid  conditions-heaven  there- 
fore would  be  a  place  of  indescribable  beauty  and 
splendour;  most  men  in  their  lifetime  never  saw 
any  gold  or  silver  or  precious  stones  and  regarded 
these  as  the  rewards  of  kings-therefore  would 
heaven  be  a  place  in  which  these  wonders  would  be 
given  to  all,  gold  and  silver  in  the  streets  like  dirt 
in  the  common  highways  of  the  country,  pearls  in 
the  gates  like  the  iron  bolts  in  the  great  portals 


^^^^ 


r^^^FTT^^y^ 


^^^'^ 


286 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


of  the  market-town;  most  men  upon  the  earth 
laboured  from  early  morning  till  late  at  night, 
until  the  back  was  weary  and  the  feet  lame-^ 
therefore  in  the  future  life  would  there  be  perfect 
rest,  as  upon  the  Sabbath,  when  weary  men  laid 
aside  their  toil  and  went  to  the  cathedral  to  wor- 
ship God ;  no  man  upon  earth  ever  laid  hold  upon 
his  ideals  of  truth,  goodness,  and  beauty— there- 
fore would  the  future  life  bring  to  every  longing 
soul  the  understanding  of  perfect  truth,  the  revela- 
tion of  perfect  goodness,  and  the  vision  of  perfect 
beauty.    Everywhere  and  always  has  immortality 
been  thus  conceived  as  the  realization  of  all  for 
which  men  have  fondly  yearned  and  earnestly 
stnven  in  this  present  life.    It  is  to  be  the  fulfil- 
ment of  all  desire,  the  satisfaction  of  all  need,  the 
ending  of  all  disappointment  and  disaster.      Not 
what  is  but  what  ought  to  be!— not  what  is  true 
but  what  is  desirable!— this  has  been  the  standard 
of  all  judgments  and   the   determination  of  all 
conclusions  in  this  field ! 


IV 


It  is  such  considerations  as  these  which  show 
how  vain  are  all  these  traditional  ideas  of  heaven 
as  answers  to  our  question.  What  will  immortality 
be  like?  It  will  be  like  something,  no  doubt  — 
however  remote  the  resemblance— but  it  will  most 
assuredly  not  be  like  anything  that  has  thus  far 
been  described.    We  know,  if  we  know  anything 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like?    287 

at  all,  that  these  heavens  cannot  exist     A.^     u 
IS  more,  we  also  know  that  even  .f     u  .t      ^^^^ 

exist,  we  should  be  sorrf  to Tw  l^^'^ '^^^  ^^"'-^ 
For  they  are  as  much  JvLat.on  oT  ^^  ''  *.™" 
sense  of  value  as  they  are  o    0!?-    °'' ' 
sense  of  realitv     TJ./  '^"''"^  modern 

thatdrearsiLlltf  "iTtf  "."^  "''''  ^^"'^ 
once  and  forever  put  aside  -       ''"'°"  ""^*  ^^  ^' 

^^^:n::z:^^r-^:  ^--  be 

quence,  worthless  as  an  answer  Z'  ^  '°"'"- 
Any  idea  of  the  life  bey'd "egTav:  Tbe"'"'^' 
able  to  the  modern  mind  mmf  nf  I  '"'^''^P*- 

upon  facts     R„f  hZ  ^°"^^^  ^  based 

upon  facts  when  tt  T  '"''^  ""  '"'^  ^^  ^ased 
deals  lies  ^^^  ^^1^  ""'/'^^^  '' 
conscious  experienc^e?  Te  w  7f  1^""' 
embarked  upon  a  hopeless  'elt^  rl  ""  '"' 
doubtedly  a  multitude  of  facts  „  fl  ""'  ''"' 
verse  of  God  wh,Vl,  1  ^^'^  Sreat  uni- 

-op.  .0  u™-,  f  thi';,rs'i„r' "" """ 

compass  infinite  nrnM  ,     "^"'*^  powers  to 

of  the  naturfofX  im"ml?a?;r°"'^^^"^^*-° 
of  these  transcenden    fac  s?  ildTf  "k^  T 

Boes  trr'ett  fZ^ZeTZ'^^  '  ^^^'^^^ 
of  inquiry,  when  the  atf^r^  .  '  '"  ^""^^  ^^^^ 
only  wisTbut  vltuo^s  '  W^^^^^^^^^  ^^  -* 

that  we  can  nevpr  hr^  \    ,  ^  '^^"^^^  confess 

is  like    and  IT     ^^  *°  ^"°^  ^^^t  immortality 
hke,  and  content  ourselves  with  the  though! 


i^*i«?«s.^  "S*^*^  - 


288 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


that  at  least  it  is  I  In  pushing  this  matter  unduly, 
shall  we  not  be  guilty  of  what  Herbert  Spencer 
rightly  calls  ''the  impiety  of  the  pious"  which 
pretends  to  sound  the  deepest  mysteries  of  being 
and  comprehend  the  farthest  purposes  of  God. 
And  shall  we  not  be  forced  in  the  end  to  the 
humiliating  confession  of  Job : 

I  uttered  that  I  understood  not; 

Things  too  wonderful  for  me,  which  I  knew  not. 

Wherefore  I  abhor  myself, 
And  repent  in  dust  and  ashes.  ^ 

At  first  sight  this  objection  seems  to  be  un- 
answerable! It  is  indeed  true  that  heaven  lies 
beyond  our  experience,  and  therefore  outside  the 
range  of  first-hand  knowledge.  To  confess  our 
ignorance  to  this  extent  is  our  only  honest  course ! 
But  even  though  we  admit  that  the  actual  facts 
of  the  next  life  are  beyond  our  direct  observation, 
we  must  never  forget  that  the  facts  of  this  life 
are  always  before  us,  and  give  us  knowledge  not 
only  of  themselves  but  of  relations  and  co-ordina- 
tions with  all  the  rest  of  the  universal  order  of 
which  they  are  a  part.  Using  such  facts  as  these 
for  our  basis  of  discussion,  may  we  not  reason,  by 
the  familiar  processes  of  logical  deduction,  to  the 
facts  pertaining  to  the  immortal  life  which,  al- 
though manifestly  beyond  the  range  of  experience, 
are  just  as  manifestly  not  beyond  the  range  of 

^Joh  xlii:  3,  6. 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like?    289 

inference.    Just  as  the  astronomer,  for  examole 
mfers  not  only  the  existence  but  the  we^ht  dTec' 
t:on  of  movement,  rapidity  of  flight,  etc    of  stars 
which  he  has  never  seen,  because  of  the  pel^ba 
.ons  noted  in  the  stars  which  flame  w^  his 
descope-just  as  the  physicist  infers  the  corTpos 

bcc^aul  of  TT  "'f  "^^  "'  P^-^*^  -S; 
because  of  the  dispersal  of  the  Hght  rays  by  the 

ernoToT  ;  '^^  ^."^'^°-^-^— y  Je  no'  in! 
ler  not  only  the  existence,  but  something  of  the 
character,  of  the  future  life,  from  the  facts  whch 
are  observed  and  experienced  in  this  present  S 
If  heaven  exists,  in  other  words,  will  it  not  be 

us"t?e:;r'  f '*''  ^°  ^^^  ^^^"*>-  ^^^-^  -  ^lu 

of  1  Tn   "'  *°  ""^'"^  foregleams,  however  dim 
of  wha^  will  some  day  be  disclosed  as  the  full  glo^' 


In  order  to  see  the  significance  of  this  thought 
we  must  recall  one  fact  which  has  all  too  often 
been  neglected  or  forgotten.  I  refer  to  the  feet 
t^hat.  as  bemgs  destined  to  what  we  call  immort  ! 
ty,  we  are  just  as  much  immortal  now  at  this 
veiy  mstant,  as  we  ever  shall  be  in  the  Lture 
Ordinarily  we  have  thought  of  life  upon  th7s  Sde 

a  new  kmd  of  existence,  upon  which  we  are  to  enter 


19 


290 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


when  this  present,  and  different  existence  is  done. 
Between  the  two  realms  of  today  and  tomorrow 
there  has  been  thought  to  be  an  absolute  break, 
which  is  spanned  by  no  bridge  of  necessary  rela- 
tion. Shakespeare  expresses  this  thought  in  his 
Measure  for  Measure,  when  he  makes  the  provost 
say  to  Claudio,  on  the  eve  of  his  execution, 

^Look,  here's  the  warrant,  Claudio,  for  thy  death. 
'Tis  now  dead  midnight,  and  by  eight  tomorrow 
Thou  must  be  made  immortal. 

And  of  course  exactly  the  same  idea  is  conveyed 
by  St.  Paul,  in  his  phrase,  "this  corruptible  must 
put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must  put  on 
immortality.** 

Now  we  only  have  to  look  at  this  conception  for 
a  moment,  in  order  to  see  how  impossible  it  is. 
''The  future  state,"  says  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
in  his  essay  on  Immortality,   "is  an  illusion  for 
the  ever-present  state.  *'^     If  immortality  means 
anything  at  all,  it  means  not  that  we  are  immortal 
tomorrow,  or  whenever  death  may  come  upon  us, 
but  that  we  are  immortal  at  this  very  instant,' 
while  we  are  flushed  with  the  full  vigour  of  our  days. 
Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth  than  to 
say  of  Claudio,  for  example,  that  he  would  ''he 
made  immovtol  by  eight  tomorrow!'*     This  man 
was  immortal  when  the  provost  was  addressing 
him,  or  not  at  all;  the  execution  then  announced 
could  no  more  make  him  immortal  than  it  could, 

'  See  Letters  and  Social  Aims,  page  281. 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like?    291 

on  the  other  hand,  destroy  his  spirit  and  hurl  him 
to  annihilation.  Eternal  life,  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  conception  itself,  includes  not  simply  the 
future,  but  the  past  as  well,  and  most  certainly 
also  the  present.  For  eternity  embraces  all  time. 
Strictly  speaking,  it  knows  no  future  and  no  past, 
but  only  an  unbegun,  unending,  ever-enduring 
present.  It  means  not  yesterday,  nor  yet  tomor- 
row, but  always  today.  As  Petrarch  puts  it,  in 
one  of  his  great  sonnets : 

Nothing  is  there  to  come,  and  nothing  past. 
But  an  eternal  Now  does  always  last. 

Immortality,  therefore,  is  something  more  than 
a  future  life.  It  is  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word  a 
present  reaHty.  "Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God," 
says  the  apostle,  with  the  emphasis  upon  "now!" 
Even  now  is  the  glory  of  the  spiritual  inheritance 
ours ;  even  now  are  we  in  the  midst  of  that  eternal 
life  for  che  coming  of  which  we  pray ;  even  now  are 
we  entered  upon  that  immortaHty  which  we  have 
long  discerned  but  dimly  in  the  future ! 

All  this  is  true,  no  doubt!  The  present  life  is 
assuredly  just  as  much  a  part  of  "our  eternity"  as 
the  future  life.  But  even  so,  how  "doth  it  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be  ? "  The  fact  that  eternity 
includes  all  time,  does  not  necessarily  imply  that 
there  is  no  break  between  these  two  forms  of  life, 
the  one  earthly  and  the  other  heavenly !  We  have 
no  evidence  that,  because  life  here  and  life  over 
there  are  only  two  parts  of  one  common  immortal- 


292 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


ity,  therefore  they  are  the  same  in  character!  As 
well  argue  that  the  prenatal  months  of  human 
existence  are  the  same  as  the  post-natal  years, 
and  that,  if  a  child  had  consciousness  within  its 
mother's  womb,  it  could  anticipate  the  conditions 
of  its  progress  after  birth!  Does  not  birth  con- 
stitute an  absolute  breach;  and  is  it  not  fair  to 
argue  that  death,  after  the  familiar  analogy,  does 
exactly  the  same! 

So  it  would  seem! — if  it  were  not  for  this  very 
analogy  which  has  just  been  used!  For  if  the 
process  of  development  in  the  animal  organism 
from  prenatal  to  post-natal  existence  illustrates 
anything  at  all,  it  illustrates  that  great  law  of  life, 
the  discovery  and  demonstration  of  which  con- 
stitutes one  of  the  triumphs  of  modern  science — 
the  Law  of  Continuity ! 

On  the  surface  of  things  we  seem  to  see  nothing 
but  the  evidences  of  discontinuity.  Objects  ap- 
pear detached  and  countable.  Atom  is  separated 
from  atom,  planet  from  planet,  species  from  spe- 
cies. Careful  study,  however,  is  more  and  more 
tending  to  show  that  all  these  isolations  are  illu- 
sory—that between  atoms  and  planets  and  species 
runs  an  unbroken  line  of  continuity,  which  binds 
them  into  one.  If  objects  seem  to  be  severed 
from  one  another,  it  is  only  because  the  inter- 
mediate forms  have  disappeared  or  have  not  yet 
been  discovered.  Says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  upon 
this  very  point  in  his  Presidential  Address  to  the 
British  Association  for  1913: 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like?    293 

^  We  have  no  reason  to  postulate  anything  but  con- 
tinuity for  space  and  time.  We  cut  them  up  for  con- 
venience sake,  and  those  units  we  can  count;  but  there 
is  really  nothing  atomic  or  countable  about  the  things 
themselves.  ...  We  ought  clearly  to  discriminate  be- 
tween  things  themselves  and  our  mode  of  measuring 
them.  ...  It  is  an  ancient  and  discarded  fable  that 
complications  introduced  by  .  .  .  an  observer  are  real 
complications  belonging  to  the  outer  universe.  ^ 

This  Law  of  Continuity  finds  its  supreme  illus- 
tration, of  course,  in  evolution.     "Continuity," 
says   Sir  OHver  Lodge  again, ^  ''is  the  backbone 
of  evolution  ...  no  artificial  boundaries  or  de- 
marcations between  species— a  continuous  chain 
of  heredity  from  far  below  the  amoeba  up  to  man.  *' 
At  first,  in  spite  of  the  declarations  of  the  thorough- 
going evolutionists,  this  unbroken  line  of  biologi- 
cal continuity  was  strenuously  denied.     The  old 
superstition  of  unrelated  species  still  survived  in 
modified   form.      Darwin's   failure   to   find    *'the 
missing  link, "  as  it  was  called,  was  a  perpetual 
theme  of  jest  when  it  was  not  used  as  a  serious 
argument.     Huxley  and  his  fellow-champions  of 
Darwinism  had  to  spend  much  time,  and  use  up 
much  printer's  ink,  in  expounding  what  should 
have  been  the  obvious  reasons  why  intermediary 
forms  of  life  have  vanished,  even  from  the  geo- 
logical deposits.     James  Martineau,  in  his  famous 
controversy    with    Herbert     Spencer,     remained 
absolutely  unconvinced  that  continuity  could  be  es- 

'  See  Continuity,  pages  44-45.  2  j^^^^  ^^^  29. 


294 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


tablished  between  animal  and  man,  between  vege- 
table and  animal,  and  least  of  all  between  mineral 
and  vegetable.  But  slowly,  step  by  step,  the 
faith  of  the  early  prophets  has  been  justified.  Gap 
after  gap  has  been  bridged  or  closed,  until  to-day 
the  line  from  inorganic  matter  up  to  thinking  man 
is  universally  regarded  as  unbroken. 

And  what  does  all  this  mean,  now,  as  regards 
the  problem  of  what  immortality  will  be  like  ?    Is 
not  the  application  obvious?     The  line  of  con- 
tinuous development  from  form  to  form  and  from 
species  to  species,   which  has  been   running  all 
through  this  earthly  life,  must,  if  there  be  a  life 
beyond,  run  on  through  that  as  well.     The  next 
life,  in  other  words,  can  be  nothing  more  than  the 
next  step  beyond  this  present  life,  and  analogous  to 
this,  therefore,  in  form  and  feature,  even  as  one 
species  of  organic  life  is  analogous  to  the  one  which 
is  just  below  it.     No  corollary  of  the  Law  of 
Continuity  is  more  valuable  to  the  seeker  after 
knowledge  than  the  means  which  it  gives  him  of  an- 
ticipating, from  the  characteristics  of  the  species  or 
form  of  life  which  he  has  seen,  the  characteristics 
of  the  next  higher  species  or  form  which  he  has  not 
seen.    He  knows  that  there  must  be  no  absolute 
break;  that  the  line  of  development  must  move  in 
a  certain  direction  and  must  manifest  certain  rela- 
tions.   The  present  stage  of  development  makes 
certain  next  steps  inevitable,  and  therefore  the 
scientist  dares  to  describe  these  next  steps  even 
before  he  has  discovered  them.    Witness  Huxley's 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    295 

daring  description  of  the  missing  link  in  the  chain 
of  development  of  the  horse,  and  the  confirmation 
of  this  anticipatory  description  by  the  specimen 
later  unearthed  by  Professor  Marsh,  of  Yale  Uni- 
versity!   All  of  which  means,  to  return  to  our 
ongmal  illustration,  that  the  unborn  child  were 
It  possessed  of  consciousness,  would  be  able  to 
foresee  and  describe  the  conditions  of  its  post- 
natal growth,  even  as  the  skilled  naturalist  can 
take  the  foetus  and  point    out    the  embryonic 
anticipations  of  all  later  developments-and  that 
we  today  should  be  similariy  able  to  foresee  and 
describe  the  life  that  is  to  come!    That  this  life 
is  the  next  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  soul  should 
be  all  the  data  that  we  need  for  speculation. 

VI 

Working  upon  this  basis,  I  venture  to  prophesy 
that  life  beyond  the  grave  will  be  in  its  essence  very 
much  like  what  Hfe  is  here  in  its  physical  environ- 
ment—namely, a  growth,  or  evolution.     Heaven 
is  not  to  be  some  marvellous  wonderiand,  where 
growth  IS  to  cease  in  the  sudden  fulfilment  of  de- 
sire but  is  rather  to  be  a  condition  in  which  the 
soul  at  last  delivered  from  the  encumbrance  of  its 
earthly  frame,  will  continue  to  unfold  and  blossom 
only  under  more  favourable  conditions  than  here 
are  ever  known.     Heaven,  in  other  words,  is  sim- 
ply the  next  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  spirit- 
ual life.    We  shall  begin  there  just  where  we  left 
oft  here-our  growth  will  be  resumed  at  just  the 


296 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


point,  high  or  low,  where  it  was  suspended  by  the 
dissolution  of  the  body.    When  we  open  our  eyes 
in  the  future  world,  we  shall  awake  to  find  our- 
selves just  what  we  have  made  ourselves  here — 
not  what  our  friends  or  enemies  think  we  are,  nor 
even  what  we  ourselves  think  we  ought  to  be,  but 
only  what  we  are  in  reality  as  the  result  of  the 
thoughts  and  deeds,  the  purposes  and  motives,  of 
this  present  existence.     The  morning  after  death 
will  be  exactly  like  the  morning  after  sleep,  so  far 
at  least  as  the  inner  life  is  concerned.    Where 
we  stopped  yesterday,  we  shall  begin  today,  as 
though  nothing  at  all  had  happened.    It  is  just  as  if 
we  were  climbing  a  long  ladder  round  by  round, 
and  suddenly,  after  years  of  climbing,  came  to  a 
closed  door  which  seemed  to  bar  our  way,  and 
then,  all  at  once,  the  door  opens,  and  we  pass 
through  and  go  on  climbing  round  by  round,  on  the 
same  ladder,  with  the  single  difference  that  we  are 
now  one  story  higher  than  before. ' 

But  what  kind  of  a  place  is  this  heaven?  To 
begin  with,  I  am  tempted  to  believe  that  heaven 
is  not  a  place  at  all— neither  a  city,  nor  a  garden, 
nor  even  a  star,  but  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 
word,  a  state  or  a  condition.  Heaven  is  a  con- 
tinuation of  this  life,  it  must  be  remembered,  in  a 

'  In  a  recently  reported  mediumistic  communication  from  the 
late  W.  T.  Stead,  the  victims  of  the  Titanic  were  described  as  not 
recognizing  that  anything  had  happened  when  they  awoke  in  the 
next  world.  Stead  had  to  tell  them  where  they  were.  This  is  the 
most  plausible  word  from  the  great  beyond  that  has  ever  come  to 
my  attention. 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    297 

spiritual  and  not  in  a  material  sense.    When  the 
body  dies,  material  conditions  will  be  ended  once 
for  all.     Just  as  we  will  be  through  with  eyes 
hands,  and  stomachs,  so  will  we  be  through  with 
houses,_  cities,    rivers,   mountains,  and   gardens. 
Localities,   with   their  physical  dimensions   and 
bounds    will  have  disappeared!    Physical  senses 
with  their  limitations  and  weaknesses  will  have 
gone!    Only  a  state  of  pure  existence  will  be  left' 
We  shall  be  souls  as  free  as  air-entities  not  of 
matter  but  of  thought,  emotion,  will!    All  this  is 
well-nigh  impossible  to  explain,  as  we  have  no 
language  in  which  to  clothe  our  thought.     But 
Swedenborg  came  as  near  as  anybody  to  convey- 

'""VrrV^^^  "^'^  accuracy  when,  in  his  Heaven 
and  Hell,  he  said  that,  in  the  next  world,  no  such 
thing  as  space  is  known  at  all ! 

But  if  a  condition  and  not  a  place— what  kind 
of  a  condition?     Following  again  the  suggestion 
giver,  us  by  our  Law  of  Continuity,  I  believe  that 
the  life  of  the  soul  in  heaven  will  be  exactly  what  it 
has  been  here  upon  earth,  minus  only  its  material 
restnctions.     For  example,   the  old   doctrine  of 
heaven  was  saturated  with  the  idea  of  rest  and 
Idleness     Nor  is  it  difficult  to  sympathize  with  this 
idea  when  we  remember  the  sweet  release  which 
death  has  ever  given  to  the  life-long  labours  of 
weary  men.    But  in  itself  this  conception  must  be 
regarded  as  not  only  irrational,  but  unworthy 
and  a  moment's  thought  as  to  the  meaning  of 
perpetual  inaction  will  show  us  also  that  it  would 


298 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


be  not  a  blessing,  but  an  intolerable  curse.    To  my 
mind,  the  soul  will  be  as  hard  at  work  in  the  next 
life  as  in  this  present  one.     This  does  not  mean 
that  the  masses  of  mankind  will  still  go  on  break- 
ing their  backs  for  the  benefit  of  the  privileged  few. 
It  does  not  mean  toil-worn,  labour-stained,  heart - 
weary  men.  It  does  not  mean  physical  labour  at  all. 
All  that  is  implied  is  that  our  souls  shall  be  bus}^ 
with  those  activities  of  the  spirit  which  radiate  jo>^ 
as  naturally  as  the  sun  its  light.    The  work  of  over- 
coming sin,  of  gaining  knowledge,  of  conquering 
doubts,  of  making  explorations  and  discoveries,  of 
realizing  ideals,  of  seeking  truths,— this  shall  be 
our  tasking.     And  that  this  is  infinitely  better 
than  any  such  state  of  idleness  as  that  pictured 
in  the  heavens  of  ancient  speculation  should  be 
obvious  to  every  mind.     John  Hay  gives  rough 
but  impressive  expression  to  this  thought,  in  his 
famous  ballad  Little  Breeches,  where  he  describes 
the  miraculous  finding  of  five-year-old  little  Gabe 
in  the  snow-bound  sheepfold. 

How  did  he  git  thar?    Angels! 

He  could  never  have  walked  in  that  storm. 
They  jist  scooped  down  and  toted  him 

To  whar  it  was  safe  and  warm. 
And  I  think  that  saving  a  little  child, 

And  fetching  him  to  his  own, 
Is  a  darned  sight  better  business 

Than  loafing  around  the  Throne. 

Then,  in  the  old  traditions,  heaven  was  always 
represented  as  a  place  where  growth  was  to  come 


I 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like?    299 

to  an  abrupt  end  in  the  absolute  fulfilment  of  all 
human  desire.     St.  John,  Dante,  Milton,  as  we 
have  seen,  describe  heaven  as  the  full  realization 
of  all  imaginable  bhss.     But  here  again  is  a  con- 
ception  which  vitiates  not  only  the  demands  of 
logical  scientific  deduction  from  observed  facts 
but  also  all  standards  of  ethical  ideahsm.    The  law 
ot  life,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  ascertain 
It,  IS  development,  progression.     Especially  is  this 
true  m  the  life  of  the  spirit.    The  deepest-rooted 
characteristic  of  the  soul  is  its  passion  for  the 
unknown  and  the  unseen.     The  whole  history  of 
human  thought  demonstrates  the  truth  that  man's 
deepest  longing  is  to  know.    And  is  it  conceivable 
that   m  a  future  life  which  has  any  remotest  re- 
semblance to  reality,  this  longing  will  be  quenched 
or  saturated  with  fulfilment  .>    Nothing  more  to 
discover,   to  learn,   to  achieve !- would  not  this 
condition  transform  heaven  into  hell,  and  make 
eternal  life  httle  better  than  eternal  death!    Like 
Alexander,  we  want  more  worlds  to  conquer-  and 
like  the  Macedonian  also,  we  derive  no  satisfac- 
tion from  the  thought  that  we  have  conquered  all' 
Heaven,  if  it  is  heaven,  must  be  a  state  of  progress. 
The  realm  of  the  mysterious  must  be  as  vast  and 
bafHmg  as  it  is  here.     There,  as  here,  the  joy  of 
life  must  be  wrapped  in  the  joy  of  combat  against 
the   unknown   and   unknowable.      "Just  as   one 
might  cHmb  a  mountain  and  get  no  nearer  to  the 
moon,"  says  Dr.  M.  J.  Savage,  in  a  sermon  on 
Immortahty,  ''or  sail  the  sea  forever,  with  his  eye 


300 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


upon,  but  never  overtaking,  a  star— so  one  will 
climb  up  ever  unto  new  heights  of  beauty  and 
glory  and  love  of  God,  but  never  find  an 
end." 

And  lastly,  there  is  that  most  intimate  question 
of  all,  Shall  we  meet  and  know  our  "loved  and 
lost'*  in  this  future  world?  In  order  to  answer 
this,  we  must  ask  the  important  preliminary' 
question  as  to  what  w^e  mean  by  knowing  a 
person? 

First  of  all,  of  course,  we  know  a  human  being 
by  his  physical  attributes  and  bodily  actions.     I 
know  my  friend,  from  all  other  persons  in  the 
world,  by  the  size  of  his  frame,  the  contour  of  his 
figure,  the  features  of  his  countenance,  the  colour 
of  his  hair,  the  radiance  of  his  smile,  the  clasp  of 
his  hand.    Nor  indeed  do  I  have  to  see  these  dis- 
tinctive features  of  his  appearance  in  order  to 
recognize  him— for  if  I  know  him  well,  I  can  dis- 
tinguish him  from  other  persons  by  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  or  the  nervous  tread  of  his  step.    Nor  do  I 
even  have  to  hear  him,  or  be  in  any  personal  con- 
tact with  him  whatsoever.     I  can  still  recognize 
his  presence,  without  even  having  seen  or  heard 
him,  by  evidence  of  his  personal  habits,  or  his 
individual  handiwork,  or  his  way  of  doing  things. 
This  pipe  on  the  table,  this  letter  half -written,  this 
decoration  on  the  wall,  this  method  of  laying  a 
coat  across  a  chair— all  these  are  things  which 
bring  me  to  a  knowledge  of  my  friend.    We  know 
a  human  being,  therefore,  by  his  physical  attri- 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like?    301 

butes,  bodily  actions,  or  personal  handiwork.  The 
body  and  the  things  handled  by  the  body  consti- 
tute revelations  of  the  soul. 

Now  if  this  be  all  that  is  meant  by  knowing  a 
person,  it  is  obvious  that  reunion  with  our  friends 
m  another  world  is  impossible.  For  these  dis- 
tinctive features  of  body  and  environment,  by 
which  the  presence  of  our  loved  ones  is  manifested 
to  us  here,  are  plainly  enough  physical,  and  cannot 
therefore  be  carried  over  into  the  future.  If  our 
longmg,  like  that  of  Tennyson,  is  to  experience  a 
second  time 

...  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still, 

that  longing  must  ever  go  unsatisfied.  The  hand  is 
vanished,  and  the  voice  is  stilled,  forever.  If  re- 
union with  our  loved  ones  depend  on  either,  that 
reunion  will  never  be  enjoyed ! 

But  is  the  knowledge  of  our  friends,  which  thus 
depends  upon  our  famiharity  with  physical  mani- 
festations, the  only  knowledge,  or  even  the  true 
knowledge?     On  the  contrary,  is  it  not  only  the 
beginning  of  a  knowledge  which,  in  the  end,  far 
transcends  all  the  conditions  of  this  material  en- 
vironment?    The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  human 
beings  are  something  more  than  a  physical  com- 
bination of  hands  and  feet  and  heads.     These 
bodies   are    useful    garments    to    wear,    or   com- 
fortable tenements  in  which  to  Hve,  or  handy  tools 
with  which  to  do  our  work.    But  when  we  come  to 


302 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


the  question  of  what  we  really  are  in  ourselves, 
we  find  that  there  is  something  deeper  and  higher 
involved  than  anything  that  the  body  is,  or  has,  or 
does.     In  the  last  analysis,  we  are  not  bodies  at 
all,  but  souls— and  any  knowledge  which  we  mav 
have  of  one  another,  if  it  is  true  knowledge,  must 
be  a  knowledge  not  of  bodies  but  of  souls.    A  dog 
can  know  a  person,  in  so  far  as  knowledge  is  no- 
thing more  than  a  matter  of  recognition  of  physi- 
cal attributes.    But  we  only  have  to  think  of  such 
a  thing  as  a  dog  knowing  a  man,  to  see  how  true 
it  is  that  real  knowledge  far  transcends  anything 
that  can   be  reached  or  analysed  by  the  physi-' 
cal  senses  of  the  body.     Only  persons  can  know 
persons,  for  only  a  soul  can  know  a  soul.     Any 
knowledge  which  is  true  knowledge  takes  us  out  of 
the  realm  of  matter  into  the  realm  of  spirit.    And 
it  is  because  the  realm  of  spirit  constitutes  a  phase 
of  experience  to  which  few  of  us  ever  climb,  that 
this  true  knowledge  is  one  of  the  rarest  things 
in  the  world.    Most  of  us  never  know  more  than 
a  comparatively  few  persons  in  the  course  of  a 
whole  lifetime;  and  some  persons  there  are  who 
are  so  above  and  beyond  us  in  moral  stature  and 
spiritual  attainment,  that  it  is  as  impossible  for  us 
to  know  them  as  it  is  for  us  to  mount  to  the  blazing 
splendour  of  the  sun.     How  many  persons  were 
there  who  really  knew  William  Shakespeare  ?  Thou- 
sands there  were  who  recognized  him  as  he  walked 
the  streets  of  Elizabethan  London,  hundreds  who 
met  him  in  the  playhouses,  scores  who  *'knew  him,*' 


I 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    303 

to  use  the  common  phrase,  as  he  sat  in  the  Mer- 
maid Tavern.     But  out  of  all  these  scores  and 
hundreds  and  thousands,  there  was  only  the  little 
mner  circle  of  the  Mermaid  comrades— Jon  son 
Marlow,  Fletcher—who  really  knew  him— knew 
him  in  the  sense  that  their  hearts  could  sing  with 
his,  and  their  minds  mount  to  the  peopled  world 
wherein  he  lived.    And  so  with  Socrates,  in  Athens ! 
Was  there  a  man  in  all  that  ancient  city  who  did 
not  know  the  familiar  figure  of  the  philosopher  as 
he  walked  its  streets  and  loitered  in  its  squares  and 
porticoes?— the  large  bald  head,  the  protruding 
eyes,  the  flat  nose,  the  thick  lips,  the  big  body 
balanced  on  its  bandy-legs  like  a  waddling  pelican, 
to  quote  the  vivid   but  unflattering  picture  of 
Anstophanes!     Everybody    knew    Socrates,    we 
would  have  been  told,  if  we  had  lived  at  this  time 
and  were  making  inquiries  as  to  his  whereabouts. 
Yes— everybody  knew  Socrates;  and  yet  nobody 
of  all  the  Athenians  really  knew  him,  save  only 
Plato,  whose  soul  alone  could  mount  to  the  heights 
of  vision,  where  dwelt  the  soul  of  his  illustrious 
teacher,  and  live  with  him  in  the  pure  atmosphere 
of  thought.     And  so,  in  an  even  more  extreme 
degree,  with  Jesus !    How  the  multitudes  thronged 
his  path  and  hung  upon  his  words !    How  eagerly 
sat  the  disciples  at  his  feet,  and  pondered  his  in- 
spired words!    How  well  they  knew  this  man  of 
Nazareth,  who  talked  of  the  Father,  and  appealed 
for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom.    And  yet  of  all  the 
men  and  women  who  "knew  Jesus,"  from  John 


304 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


the  well-beloved  disciple  down,  was  there  one  who 
really  knew  him  as  he  was  ? 

Knowledge,  as  we  may  perhaps  begin  now  to 
see,  is  an  infinitely  rarer  and  finer  thing  than  we 
had  any  idea  of  when  we  spoke  of  knowing  a  per- 
son through  the  seeing  of  our  eyes  and  the  hearing 
of  our  ears.    Knowledge,  in  the  last  analysis,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  physical  attributes  or  bodily 
powers.     If  we  would  know  a  person  as  he  is, 
and  not  merely  as  he  appears  to  be,  we  must  go 
behind  the  body,  which  conceals  and  distorts  quite 
as  often    as    it  reveals,   and    by  some    magical 
influences  of  the  spirit,  lay  bare  the  secret  and 
sacred  places  of  the  soul.    Knowledge  of  a  person 
does  not  mean  knowledge  of  hair,  eyes,  and  voice, 
but  knowledge  of  hopes  and  fears,   desires  and 
aspirations.    It  means  tearing  aside,  or  penetrating 
within,   or  rising  above,   the  entangling  encum- 
brances of  the  flesh,  and  meeting  heart  with  heart, 
and  spirit  with  spirit,  in  the  blessed  intimacies  of 
truth  and  love.     It  means  being  caught  up  and 
transfigured  by  mutual  sympathies  and  affections 
so  that  thoughts  may  be  exchanged,  desires  under- 
stood, and  sacrifices  shared.    It  is  all  summed  up 
in  the  statement  that  the  essence  of  knowledge  is 
not  physical  recognition  but  spiritual  communion. 
Those  only  could  know  Shakespeare,  who  could 
see  with  Shakespeare;  those  only  know  Socrates, 
who  could  think  with  Socrates;  those  only  know 
Jesus,  who  could  "take  up  the  cross"  with  Jesus  I 
True  is  the  insight  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  and  sound 


What  will  ImmortaHty  be  Like?    305 


the 
of 


his  judgm.ent,  when  he  says,  in  his  Essay  0 
Death  of  Goethe,  "Love  is  ever  the  beginnii 
knowledge,  as  fire  is  of  light. " 

Now  here  is   what   is  really  involved  in  our 
knowledge  of  a  person,  and  here  is  the  suggestion 
that  we  need  as  to  the  possibility  of  our  knowing 
our  loved  ones  in  the  world  to  come.    Those  whom 
we  know  only  as  we  know  "this  goodly  frame,  the 
earth,      by  the  physical  lineaments  which  they 
present  to  our  gaze,  will  disappear  from  our  ken 
after   death    as   completely   as   the   earth   itself 
But  those  mto  the  secret  of  whose  inmost  being  we 
have  penetrated,   will  be  found  again,   however 
wide  the  separation  of  the  years.    Soul  will  call  to 
soul,  and  answer  from  each  to  each  will  never  fail 
Spirit   will   commune  with   spirit   in   that   sweet 
language  of  mystic  intuition  which  needs  no  words 
to  speak  its  meaning.    We  have  but  to  see  with  the 
single  eye  of  the  heart,  to  know  with  that  know- 
ledge which  surpasseth  the  apprehension  of  the 
sense,  to  love  ''in  spirit  and  in  truth  '*— and  behold 
our  own  shall  evermore  be  ours!    As  well  think 
of  snapping  the  chains  of  gravitation  that  bind 
the  planets  to  the  central  sun,  as  of  severing  these 
bonds  which  bind  the  hearts  of  men.    Of  all  that 
truly  love,  it  must  be  said,  what  one  who  truly 
loved  first  said  of  her  beloved  and  herself: 

Men  could  not  part  us  with  their  worldly  jars. 

Nor  the  seas  change  us,  nor  the  tempests  bend* 
Our  hands  would  touch  for  all  the  mountain-bars': 

20 


3o6 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


And,  heaven  being  rolled  between  us  in  the  end, 
We  should  but  vow  the  faster  for  the  stars.  ^ 

VII 

Such  is  what  immortality  will  be  like,  so  far  at 
least  as  we  can  judge  from  the  facts  of  present 
life !  There  is  no  break  between  the  two  existences, 
no  startling  change,  no  awful  metamorphosis! 
Life  simply  continues,  goes  on  there  where  it  left 
off  here,  mounts  one  step  higher  on  the  long,  long 
climb  upward  toward  the  eternal.  So  natural  is  it 
all,  that  we  can  well  believe  that  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  is  right  in  his  surmise  that,  *'when  we  say 
here  a  man  is  dead,  it  is  said  there,  behold,  a  man 
is  bom." 

In  the  second  act  of  Maeterlinck's  fairy  play, 
The  Blue  Bird,  the  two  children,  Mytyl  and  Tyltyl[ 
are  represented  as  going  to  the  Land  of  Memory,' 
to  see  their  grandfather  and  grandmother,  both 
long  since  dead.  As  the  brother  and  sister  look 
about  them,  they  notice  that  everything  looks 
strangely  familiar. 

Tyltyl:  (looking  first  at  his  grandmother  and 
then  at  his  grandfather)— You  haven't 
changed,  grandad,  not  a  bit,  not  a  bit. 
...  And  granny  hasn't  changed  a  bit 
either.  .  .  .  But  you're  better  looking.  .  .  . 

Gaffer  Tyl:  Well,  we  feel  all  right.  ...  We  have 
stopped  growing  older.  .  .  . 

'  See  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning's  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese, 
No.  ii. 


What  will  Immortality  be  Like  ?    307 


Tyltyl: 


Gaffer  Tyl: 
Tyltyl: 

Gaffer  Tyl: 


Tyltyl: 


Gaffer  Tyl: 


(looking  around  him  with  delight)— No- 
thing is  changed,  everything  is  in  its  old 
place!  .  .  .  Only  everything  is  prettier! 
.  .  .  There  is  the  clock  with  the  big  hand 
which  I  broke  the  point  off .  .  .  . 

And  here  is  the  soup-tureen  you  chopped 
a  corner  off .  .  .  . 

And  here  is  the  hole  which  I  made  in  the 
door,  the  day  I  found  the  gimlet. 
Yes,  you've  done  some  damage  in  your 
time!  And  here  is  the  plum-tree  in  which 
you  were  so  fond  of  climbing.  It  still  has 
Its  fine  red  plums. 

But  they  are  finer  than  ever !  .  .  .  There's 

Kiki,  whose  tail  I  cut  off  with  Pauline's 

scissors.  ...  He  hasn't  changed  either. 

(sententiously)  —  No,     nothing    changes 
here. 


Thus,  in  the  simple  language  of  childhood,  does 
the  Belgian  seer  interpret  the  truth,  which  we  have 
been  trymg  to  make  plain,  of  what  the  immortal 
life  IS  like.     All  is  the  same-nothing  changes 
save  only  to  grow  better.  ' 


CHAPTER  IX 


IS  IMMORTALITY  DESIRABLE? 

*It  is  conceivable  that  the  immortal  hope  may  be 
mistaken,  but  of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure,  that  it 
would  be  a  good  thing  if  it  were  true.  If  we  define 
immortality  in  the  Christian  sense,  it  is  a  thing  de- 
voutly  to  be  desired."— William  Adams  Brown,  in 
The  Christian  Hope,  page  196. 


I N  all  that  we  have  been  spying  thus  far.  wc  have 
1  been  taking  it  for  granted  that  immortalily 
can  be  rcgardod  as  desirable.  Certainly  this  ^•ould 
seem,  at  first  .sight  at  least,  to  be  a  reasonably  sifc 
assumption.  Indeed,  would  it  not  be  almost  "the 
height  of  the  ridiculou.s"  to  mise  any  serious  ques- 
tion about,  the  matter?  Would  it  not  be  as  absuixi 
for  a  theologian  to  ask  if  men  desire  immortality, 
as  for  a  botanist  to  ask  if  the  flower  desires  the 
life.quickcninR  advent  of  the  spring,  or  for  tlK^ 
mother  to  ask  if  her  eliild  desiitis  the  coming  of 
another  day?  Think,  for  exampk\  of  how  the 
Christian  church,  for  nearly  two  thotisand  years, 
has  licld  before  the  hearts  of  men,  overwhelmed  by 
the  toils  of  existence  and  bruised  by  it$  pathetic 
tragedies,  the  hope  of  an  eternal  life  beyond  the 


Is  Immortality  Desirable  ?        309 

grave— and  think  of  how  mankind  has  welcomed 
the  glad  hope  and  yearned  for  its  speedy  realiza- 
tion.   Immortality  has  been  looked  forward  to  by 
myriads  of  stricken  hearts  as  a  new^  and  better  life, 
w^hich  shall  bring  rest  to  the  w^eary,  freedom  to  the 
oppressed,  light  to  those  who  sit  in  darkness,  joy 
for  sorrow,  beauty  for  ashes,  the  garment  of  praise 
for  the  robe  ol  heaviness.    It  has  been  longed  for 
by  those  who  have  "  loved  and  lost,**  as  the  time 
when  their  dear  ones  shall  be  met  again  and  separa- 
tion be  ended.    It  has  been  hailed  by  the  prophets 
of  all  peoples  as  the  time  when  the  first  heaven  and 
fii^t  earth,  so  full  of  injustice,  unrighteousness,  and 
hate,  .sh<:ll  pass  away,  and  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth  shaU  come,  where  juiuice  shall  l)e  established^ 
righteousness  made  known,  and  love  enthroned 
supreme  in  the  hearts  of  nnm.    And  it  has  been 
seen  in  glad  vision  by  the  dreaming  mystics  of 
ever>'  age  and  place  a$  the  time  when  earth  .shall  be 
consigned  to  earth,  dust  to  dust,  ashes  to  ashes,  and 
the  soul  of  man,  shorn  of  the  image  of  the  earthly 
and  bearing  the  image  of  the  lieavenly,  shall  meet 
face  to  face  with  God.    Is  immortality  desirable? 
Why,  it  is  the  one  univcreal,  imcnding,  and  im\^ry- 
ing  desire  of  humanity :  it  is  the  one  great  instinct 
of  the  heart ;  it  is  the  one  sujjrcmc  asyjinition  of  the 
soul.     We  want  to  be  immortal,  and  therefore,  if 
tlie  pragmatist  be  right,  wc  shall  be  immortal! 
Thus  Addison,  in  the  famous  passage  of  his  Cato, 
where  he  makes  one  of  his  characters  to  say,  in 
lonely  meditation  upon  the  issues  of  life  and  death : 


310 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Is  Immortality  Desirable? 


311 


It  must  be  so — 

Else  whence  this  pleasing  hope,  this  fond  desire, 

This  hungering  after  immortality  ? 

Or  whence  this  secret  dread,  and  inward  horror, 

Of  falling  into  nought  ?  .  .  . 

II 

No  sooner,  however,  is  this  question  of  man's 
desire  for  immortahty  raised  in  a  calm,  scientific 
spirit  of  inquiry,  as  Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickinson  raised 
it,  for  example,  in  his  Harvard  Lecture  of  19 11,' 
than  we  are  suddenly  awakened  to  the  remarkable 
fact  that  our  assumption,  that  all  men  desire  to  be 
immortal,  is  supported  by  no  evidence  and  has 
been  very  generally  accepted  only  because  it  has 
never  been  seriously  investigated.     Undoubtedly 
there  have  always  been  men  who  have  looked 
forward  to  eternal  life  with  joyful  anticipation— 
the  whole  history  of  the  Christian  Church  is  elo- 
quent of  this  fact.    But  to  say  that  all  men  have 
shared  this  "hungering  after  immortahty"  is  quite 
a  different  proposition,  as  we  have  already  seen. 
It  would  be  a  manifest  exaggeration  to  assert  that 
it  has  been  quite  as  common  in  the  past  for  men  to 
be  indifferent  to  the  future  life  as  to  desire  it. 
But  to  say  that  this  attitude  of  indifference  has 
not  been  infrequent  in  the  past,  and  has  sensibly 
increased  within  recent  years,  as  the  influence  of 
Christianity  has  diminished  and  the  influence  of 

^  See  Is  Immortality  Desirable  ? 


! 


grown, 


the  scientific  habit  of  mind  has  slowl 
would  be  keeping  well  within  the  truth,  n  great 
number  of  persons  today,  so  far  from  desiring 
immortality  as  a  conscious  psychological  experi- 
ence, can  be  divided,  in  their  attitude  upon  this 
question,  into  four  classes. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  that  class  akeady 
referred  to,  ■  in  which  the  overwhehning  majority 
of  people  at  the  present  time  are  rightly  to  be 
placed,  and  which  Dr.  William  Osier,  in  Science 
and  Immortality,  aptly  describes  as  the  "Laodi- 
ceans."    These  are  the  persons  who  are  "neither 
hot  nor  cold."     They  are  indifferent  to  the  ques- 
tion just  as  they  are  indifferent  to  the  question  of 
the  flora  and  fauna  of  Patagonia,  or  the  habits  of 
earth-worms,   or   the  canals  in   Mars.     Neither 
among  the  educated  and  refined,  nor  among  the 
masses   says  Dr.  Osier,  "do  we  find  any  ardent 
desire  for  a  future  life.     It  is  not  a  subject  of 
drawing-room  conversation-the  man  whose  habit 
It  IS  to  buttonhole  his  acquaintances  and  inquire 
earnestly  after  their  souls,  is  shunned  like  the 
Ancient  Mariner-and  even  among  the  clergy  it 
IS  not  thought  polite  to  refer  to  so  dehcate  a  topic 
except  officially  from  the  pulpit."  .  .  .     Even  at 
the  hour  of  death  itself.  Dr.  Osier  tells  us,  there  is 
this  same  prevailing  indifference. 

I  have    careful    records    [he    says],    of  about    five 
hundred  death-beds,  studied  particularly  with  refer- 

'  See  back.  Chapter  II.,  page  23. 


312 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


ence  to  the  sensations  of  the  dying.  .  .  .  Eleven 
showed  mental  apprehension,  two  positive  terror,  one 
expressed  spiritual  exaltation,  one  bitter  remorse. 
The  great  majority  gave  no  sign  one  way  or  the 
other;  like  their  birth,  their  death  was  a  sleep  and  a 
forgetting.^ 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  those  persons  who 
have  appeared  in  every  age,  who  are  not  at  all 
indifferent  to  this  question,  but  who,  so  far  from 
desiring  an  immortal  Hfe,  regard  such  a  prospect 
with  abhorrence  and  aversion.     These  are   the 
persons  whom  we  usually  call  pessimists— persons 
who  regard  the  present  life  as  terrible  beyond 
words  to  describe,  who  assume  that  any  conceiv- 
able future  life  will  be  of  much  the  same  character 
as  this,  and  who  affirm  therefore  that  absolute 
extinction  after  death  is  the  only  thing  that  any 
sane  man  can  desire.     These  men  believe,  upon 
exact  philosophic  grounds,  that  existence  in  itself 
is  bad — ^and  this  conclusion  of  course  applies  just 
as  much  to  existence  beyond  the  grave  as  to  exist- 
ence upon  this  side  of  the  grave.     Buddhism,  the 
classic  reHgion  of  pessimism,  is  saturated  with  this 
idea,  and  therefore  finds  its  eternal  salvation  in 
Nirvana,  or  extinction.     Schopenhauer,  the  foun- 
der of  the  modem  school  of  philosophic  pessimism, 
and  always  much  under  Buddhist  influences,  is  the 
typical  example  of  this  attitude  of  mind  in  our  own 
time.     "To  desire  immortaHty,"  says  this  great 
thinker,  ''is  to  desire  the  eternal  perpetuation  of 

*  See  Science  and  Immortality,  page  19. 


Is  Immortality  Desirable?         313 

a  great  mistake.  Each  individual  existence  is  a 
definite  mistake,  a  blunder,  something  that  w^ould 
better  not  have  been,  and  the  object  of  existence 
should  be  to  end  it."^  Therefore  does  Schopen- 
hauer look  forward  to  death  with  eager  anticipa- 
tion, not  because,  like  the  Christian  martyr  or  the 
medieval  mystic,  he  regards  death  as  the  gate  of 
heaven,  but  rather  because  he  regards  death  as 
bringing  the  ''absolute  annihilation"  of  the  in- 
dividual Hfe  and  therefore  the  end  of  the  supreme 
misery  of  existence. 

A  third  attitude  toward  this  question  of  immor- 
tality is  one  which  has  been  taken  by  many  of  the 
noblest  minds.    I  refer  to  the  attitude  of  those  w^ho, 
not  indifferent  to  the  question,  like  the  average 
man  upon  the  street,  have  reflected  upon  it,  as  one 
of  the  stupendous  problems  of  human  life ;  and,  not 
averse  to  existence,  hke  the  pessimist,  as  ''evil 
continually, "  have  Hved  this  Hfe  to  the  full  and  got 
much  joy  and  satisfaction  out  of  it ;  and  have  yet 
come  to  the  deHberate  conclusion,  as  the  result  of 
inward  reflection  and  outward  experience,  that  ob- 
Hvion  after  death  is  to  be  preferred  to  continued 
hfe.     These  men  have  all  found  life  good  and 
sweet ;  they  have  had  burdens  to  carry  and  sorrows 
to  endure,  but  still  have  found  more  good  than 
evil  in  the  w^orld,  more  joy  than  misery;  they  have 
many  of  them  achieved  certain  things  for  the 
greater  welfare  and  prosperity  of  mankind,  but, 
after  long  careers  of  struggle  and  endeavour,  of 

*  See  The  World  as  Will,  vol.  ii.,  page  561. 


314 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


mingled  failure  and  success,  have  simply  had 
enough  of  life,  and  believe  that  the  sweetest  boon 
that  can  come  at  the  moment  of  death  is  the  boon  of 
oblivion  and  repose,  just  as  the  sweetest  boon  that 
can  come  at  the  close  of  a  hard  day*s  work  is  the 
boon  of  sleep.  So  far  from  desiring  immortality, 
these  men  positively  yearn  for  extinction,  just  as 
the  strong  man  yearns  for  sleep  when  the  night 
follows  upon  the  day.  This  is  the  attitude  ex- 
pressed by  Professor  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  in  his 
book  on  Immortality.  He  tells  us  that,  as  he  looks 
into  his  own  mind  ''with  all  the  frankness  and 
scientific  objectivity*'  which  he  can  apply  to  so 
personal  a  question,  he  finds  no  horror  connected 
with  the  thought  of  death  and  ultimate  extinction. 

Of  course  [he  says],  it  is  objectionable  to  suffer  ill- 
ness or  pain,  and  there  are  beside  still  many  things 
which  I  should  like  to  do  or  to  experience  before  I  die. 
.  .  .  But  after  I  have  lived  out  the  span  of  my  life, 
the  bodily  ending  will  seem  a  perfectly  natural  thing, 
and  it  will  be  more  a  feeling  of  relief  than  one  of  sorrow 
that  will  come  in  watching  the  end.^ 

Mr.  G.  Bernard  Shaw,  presents  another  striking 
example  of  this  same  viewpoint : 

I  have  a  strong  feeling  [he  says],  that  I  shall  be 
glad  when  I  am  dead  and  done  for — scrapped  at  last 
to  make  room  for  somebody  better,  cleverer,  more 
perfect  than  myself.  ^ 

*  See  Individuality  and  Immortality,  pages  62-63. 
»  See  George  Bernard  Shaw:  His  Life  and  Works,  by  Archibald 
Henderson,  page    484.     See    further    Shaw's    last    publication, 


II 


Is  Immortality  Desirable  ?        315 

This  is  the  attitude  set  forth  also  by  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  in  the  famous  epitaph  which  he 
wrote  for  himself: 

I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife, 
Nature  I  loved  and  next  to  nature  art, 

I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life. 
It  sinks,  and  I  am  ready  to  depart. 

And  as  a  climax  to  this  whole  interpretation  of 
existence,  we  have  the  calm  assertion  of  the  great 
scientist,  Elie  Metchnikoff,  that  this  relief  that 
hfe  was  over  and  this  reluctance  to  continue  living 
on  indefinitely  into  the  future  would  be  the  feeling 
of  us  all,  if  we  were  not  habitually  cut  off  before 
the  natural  term  of  life  had  ended-a  term  which 
he  puts,  in  his  book  entitled.  The  Prolongation  of 
Life,  as  high  as  one  hundred  and  fifty  years!' 

Finally,  there  is  a  fourth  class  of  persons  who, 
for  still  another  reason,  find  the  conception  of 
immortality  positively  undesirable.  I  refer  to  that 
large  class  of  persons  in  our  own  day  who  are 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  pressing  problems  of  the 
world,  and  who  are  impatient  of  this  longing  for 
immortality  which  disarms  people  for  practical 
service  in  the  life  that  now  is.     It  is  here  that 

Misalliance: -\i  some  devil  were  to  convince  us  that  our  dream 
of  personal  immortality  is  no  dream  but  a  hard  fact,  such  a 
shnek  of  despair  would  go  up  from  the  human  race,  as  no  other 
conceivable  horror  could  provoke  .  .  .  After  all,  what  man  is 
capable  of  the  msane  self-conceit  of  believing  that  an  eternity 
of  himself  would  be  tolerable  even  to  himself.  "—Pages  ix  x 
■  See  also  The  Nature  of  Man,  chapters  ix.,  x.,  xi. 


3i6 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Christianity  has  been  so  conspicuous  an  offender. 
Supremely  interested  in  the  life  that  may  exist 
beyond   the   grave,    it   has   been   almost   wholly 
neglectful  of  the  life  that  we  know  exists  upon  this 
side  of  the  grave.    Absorbed  in  preparing  men  and 
women  for  the  next  worid,  it  has  forgotten  to 
protect  them  in  this  worid.    Concerned  primarily 
with  saving  people's  souls  in  heaven,  it  has  for- 
gotten  to  save  people's  bodies  on  the  earth.    The 
desire  of  the  typical  Christian,  in  a  word,  for 
"things   heavenly"  has  been  so  urgent,   that  it 
has  inevitably  led  him  to  despise  things  earthly. 
Hence  the  ever-growing  protest  of  our  age,  which 
is  concerned  first,  last,  and  all  the  time  with  the 
now  and  here,  against  the  whole  conception  of  the 
immortal  life !     We  are  asked  to  banish  this  dream 
from  our  hearts— to  turn  our  gaze  from  this  decep- 
tive will-o'-the-wisp!    We  do  not  know  whether 
immortality  is  true  or  not,  and  in  all  probability 
we  never  shall  know.     So  let  us  dismiss  this  fan- 
tastic hope  of  an  eternal  existence,  and  dedicate 
all  that  we  have  and  are  to  the  uplift  and  regenera- 
tion of  the  life  that  we  see  about  us.    The  desirable 
thing  is  not  continued  life  tomorrow,  but  perfect 
life  today;  not  a  life  that  is  eternal  in  quantity 
but  a  life  that  is  eternal  in  quahty ;  not  the  finding 
of  a  kingdom  of  heaven  over  there,  but  the  found- 
ing of  a  kingdom  of  heaven  here.     And  we  are 
reminded  of  the  story  of  the  saint  of  old,  who  was 
seen  one  day  running  through  the  streets  with  a 
torch  in  one  hand  and  a  pail  of  water  in  the  other; 


Is  ImmortaHty  Desirable  ? 


317 


and,  when  asked  what  she  was  going  to  do,  replied  • 
"With  the  water  I  am  going  to  extinguish  the  fires 
of  hell,  and  with  the  torch  I  am  going  to  bum  the 
ramparts  of  heaven,  that  men  may  see  this  worid 
alone,  and  do  good  for  no  other  reason  than  the 
love  of  God!" 

Now,  it  is  when  we  consider  these  various  classes 
of  persons,  all  of  which  must  be  familiar  to  us  in  the 
ranges  of  our  own  experience,  that  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  there  is  Httle  truth  in  the  statement 
that  all  men  desire  immortality.     Immortality  is 
by  no  means  the  desirable  thing  in  men's  minds 
that   we   have   somewhat   carelessly  assumed    it 
was.    Most  men,  as  Dr.  Osier  and  Mr.  Dickinson 
both  contend,  seldom  give  the  matter  a  moment's 
consideration,  save  perhaps  under  the  stress  of 
some  cruel  tragedy  of  death;  and  of  those  who  do 
reflect  upon  the  subject,  many  of  the  finest  minds 
dehberately  desire  extinction  and  repose,  with  an 
exclusive  focussing  of  their  impulses  upon  the  life 
that  we  now  are  living.    It  is  this  situation  which 
forces  upon  our  minds  the  inevitable  question.  Is 
immortaUty  desirable?  and  although  this  question 
may  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  be  a  problem  of  pure 
speculation,  not  worth  discussion,  since  men  are 
surely  destined  either  to  immortality  or  to  extinc- 
tion, without  regard  as  to  whether  or  not  they  find 
their  fate  desirable,  yet  we  may  believe  that  there 
are  certain  practical  conclusions  following  upon  a 
sound  decision  of  this  problem  which  will  justify 
us  in  seeking  an  answer  to  the  question. 


«a.»ay»    ■'^'^^^•■■"-.irft'hfiiil'ii.'i:  ff 


318 


Is  Death  the  End  ? . 


Is  Immortality  Desirable? 


319 


III 


The  first  thought  which  comes  into  our  minds, 
as  we  consider  whether  or  not  immortality  is 
desirable,  is  that  which  Mr.  Dickinson  places  in 
the  forefront  of  his  discussion— namely  **that  the 
desirability  of  a  future  life  must  depend  upon  its 
character,  just  as  does  the  desirabiHty  of  this  one/' ' 
And  right  here,  let  it  be  said,  that  if  the  future 
life  turns  out  to  be  anything  like  what  it  has 
been  described,  through  all  the  ages  of  Christian 
history,  then  we  may  well  sincerely  pray  to  be 
delivered  from  so  dreadful  a  fate  by  the  merciful 
blessing  of  extinction.     Mark  Twain  wrote  not 
only  an  amusing  story  but  also  a  parable  which  was 
true  to  human  nature,  when  he  told  his  story  of 
the  old  Yankee  sea-captain  who  went  to  heaven 
and  entered  with  joy  unspeakable  within  its  pearly 
gates.     Here  he  was  given  his  robe  and  crown  and 
golden   harp,   according  to  the   traditional  pro- 
gramme, and  assigned  his  task  of  singing  hymns  of 
praise  and  adoration  unto  God.    For  a  time,  we  are 
assured,  all  went  well;  but  little  by  little,  this  kind 
of  life  began  to  pall,  and  soon  he  was  wilHng  to 
do  anything  to  escape  from  so  terrible  a   place.  =» 
Dante,  in  his  Paradiso,  has  undoubtedly  given  the 
most  sublime  description  of  the  traditional  Chris- 
tian heaven  that  ever  was  conceived  of  by  the 
mind  of  man,  but  just  to  read  the  Paradiso  is 

'  See  Is  Immortality  Desirable  ?  page  14. 
» See  Captain  StormfieWs  Visit  to  Heaven. 


tedious  beyond  words,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  there  is 
any  one  of  us  who  would  really  like  to  abide  within 
the  place  which  it  describes  in  such  glowing  lan- 
guage.   And  this  abhorrence,  which  we  feel  for  a 
future  life  of  this  kind,  is  stirred  not  half  so  much 
by  the  imagery  in  which  the  Christian  idea  of 
heaven   has   taken   shape,   as   by   the   unworthy 
motives  and  aspirations,  of  which  this  imagery  is 
the  crude  and  inadequate  expression.    What  men 
have  always  thought  that  they  have  wanted  in  the 
next  world,  as  we  have  seen,  has  been  a  heaven  in 
which  all  desireswill  be  gratified,and  all  disappoint- 
ments, longings,  and  despairs  removed.    Therefore 
have  they  pictured  immortality,  in  the  figurative 
terms  which  we  have  described,  as  a  condition  in 
which  labour  and  strife,  struggle  and  search,  regret 
and  failure,  will  be  once  and  forever  at  an  end 
All  goals  will  at  last  be  revealed,  all  summits 
scaled,  all  horizons  bounded.    Truth  will  be  known, 
goodness  achieved,  justice  established.    The  future 
life,  in  one  word,  will  be  only  quiet,  happiness, 
peace— the  perfection  of  all  imperfections  and  the 
completeness  of  all  incompleteness. 

Such  have  been  the  dreams  of  men  for  the  life 
that  is  to  come !  But  is  it  not  obvious,  after  only  a 
moment  or  two  of  serious  consideration,  that  these 
ideals  are  the  expression  of  tired  bodies,  disordered 
nerves,  disillusioned  minds,  broken  hearts,  and  not 
at  all  the  expression  of  the  best  instincts  of  the 
human  spirit  ?  Who  of  us,  who  has  really  searched 
his  soul  and  come  to  some  sure  knowledge  of  his 


it 


320 


Is  Death  the  End? 


true  self,  would  confess  to  a  desire  for  an  immor- 
tality of  this  kind  ?     Who  of  us  would  care  to  live 
on  even  for  a  day,  to  say  nothing  of  an  eternity, 
if  we  had  no  goals  to  seek,  no  mountain  peaks 
to  climb?     Who  of  us  would  care  to  survive  the 
night,  if  struggles  and  toils  were  over,  and  all 
things  possible  achieved?     Merely  to  linger  on, 
through  centuries  and  aeons  of  dull  inaction,  will  be 
no  blessing  to  the  eager  soul.    Life  is  worth  living 
here  only  because  it  has  visions  not  yet  revealed, 
and  kingdoms  that  have  not  yet  been  brought  in 
upon  the  earth.    Take  away  the  things  we  seek  and 
struggle  to  accompHsh,  and  you  take  away  the 
very  essence  of  life ;  and  we  find  ourselves  existing 
merely  as  exist  the  animals,  who  gaze  upon  no  far 
horizons  and  never  look  upward  to  the  stars.    "If 
I  had  to  choose,"  said  Lessing,  "between  finding 
truth  and  seeking  for  truth,  I  would  unhesitatingly 
choose  the  latter!"     Such  is  life  today!     And  as 
surely  as  life  tomorrow  will  be  only  the  extension 
of  this  Hfe  today,  so  surely  will  this  present  condi- 
tion of  desirabihty  be  continued.    And  here  is  the 
reason  why  men  Hke  Wilhelm  Ostwald  and  Ber- 
nard Shaw,  for  example,  have  testified  that  they 
preferred  extinction  to  immortaHty.     They  have 
in  their  minds  this  traditional  and  outworn  con- 
ception of  the  future  life  as  the  completion  and 
fulfilment  of  all  activity,  and  they  cannot  endure 
the  intolerable  thought  of  such  a  dead  and  un- 
inspiring existence.     Seekers  for  truth  all  their 
days,  they  cannot  conceive  anything  more  terrible 


Is  Immortality  Desirable? 


321 


than  to  find  suddenly  that  every  fact  has  been 

discovered  and  every  problem  solved.     Men  of 

ceaseless  activity,  they  shrink  from  the  thought  of 

continuing  inactive  through  an  unbroken  eternity 

of  years.     Devoted  servants  of  an  imperfect  and 

ignorant  humanity,  they  revolt  from  the  idea  of  a 

life  which  involves  no  service  "for  others'  sakes." 

Their  lives  lived  to  the  limit  and  their  work  done 

to  the  uttermost,  they  desire  not  immortality  but 

extinction.     And  who  of  us  would  question,  from 

this  point  of  view,  the  perfect  wisdom  of  their 

choice ! 


IV 


If  this,  therefore,  is  what  immortality  really 
means— and  this  is  certainly  what  we  have  been 
taught  for  ages  to  believe  .'—then  we  must  agree 
that  we  would  have  to  answer  our  question  in  the 
negative— that  immortality  is  not  desirable ! 

But  is  this  what  immortality  really  means?  On 
the  contrary,  have  we  not  just  seen,  in  the  last 
chapter,  that  this  is  the  one  conception  of  im- 
mortality which  is  not  admissible?  Did  not  every 
consideration  there  point  us  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  immortal  life,  if  it  be  at  all,  must,  in  all  of  its 
conditions,  be  very  close  to  the  conditions  of  the 
present  life?  Death,  if  it  leads  to  immortality, 
can  "make  no  sudden  break  in  our  spiritual  life," 
but  must  mark  nothing  more  decisive  than  the 
end  of  one  stage  of  spiritual  development  and  the 


21 


322 


Is  Death  the  End? 


beginning  of  another.    The  future  life,  that  is,  must 
begin  for  each  one  of  us  exactly  where  our  present 
life  leaves  off.    We  may  find  the  conditions  in  the 
next  world  more  favourable  to  moral  and  spiritual 
attainment  than  they  are  in  this  Hfe— we  may  find 
that,  in  our  spiritual  bodies,  we  are  equipped  with 
powers  of  aspiration  and  achievement  greater  than 
any  that  we  have  ever  known  before— we  may 
find  that  everything  has  widened  to  boundaries  of 
which  we  have  never  even  dreamed,  just  as  the 
landscape  widens  before  our  gaze  as  we  cHmb  higher 
and  higher  upon  the  mountain-side.     But  the  es- 
sential thing  in  both  realms  of  existence  must  be 
the  same— namely,  the  chance  for  labour,  growth, 
and  achievement.     There  will  be  nothing  in  the 
future  Hfe  that  is  a  perfect  whole.    There  will  be 
no  boundaries  beyond  which  the  human  soul  can 
not  venture  upon  its  voyages  of  discovery.  There 
will  still  be  goals  to  seek  and  horizons  to  explore. 
There  will  still  be  struggle  and  disappointment  and 
failure— there  will  still  be  hope  and  courage  and 
aspiration.     Victories  will  be  won  there  beyond  all 
that  we  had  ever  dreamed  of  here— summits  will 
there  be  gained  to  which  here  we  never  dared  to 
climb.     But  still,  forever  and  forever,  there  will  be 
the  chance  to  improve  things  by  our  own  efforts; 
still  the  chance  to  do  better  and  to  be  more— for  the 
spiritual  universe,  like  the  material  universe,  is  a 
reahn  which  knows  not  boundaries  but  frontiers. 
To  be  immortal,  is  to  have  the  opportunity  to  do 
one  more  thing,  and  to  take  one  more  step.    It  is 


Is  Immortality  Desirable?         323 

to  have  the  privilege  of  finding  one  more  truth  and 
winning  one  more  victory  for  God.  It  is  to  grow- 
to  climb— to  explore— in  the  words  of  the  EHza- 
bethan  poet,  George  Chapman,  it  is  ''to  die 
aspiring." 


This,  now,  being  our  conception  of  immortality, 
who  is  there  will  say  that  such  an  immortality  is 
not  desirable?     Who  would  not  prefer  this  life  of 
new  endeavour  to  absolute  extinction?     Even  Ost- 
wald,  who  we  saw  could  look  into  his  own  heart 
and  find  no  regret  connected  with  the  idea  of  death, 
even  when  conceived  of  as  total  oblivion,  confessed,' 
at  an  unguarded  moment,  in  the  passage  quoted 
above,  that  ''there  are  still  many  things  which  I 
should  like  to  do  or  to  experience  before  I  die." 
And  what  does  this  confession  mean  if  not  that  he 
would  like  to  live  on  after  death,  if  in  this  future 
life  he  could  do  the  things  which  he  had  left  un- 
done here  and  experience  the  things  which  here  he 
was  not  able  to  experience?    Who  is  there  who 
does  not  find  within  himself  this  same  yearning  to 
do  things  which  we  know  we  shall  never  have  time 
to  do  within  the  space  of  a  single  lifetime,  and  to 
experience  things  which  here  lie  quite  beyond  the 
range  of  our  experience?     "There  is  no  one  of  us, 
even  the  most  fortunate,"  says  Mr.  Dickinson,' 
with  perfect  truth,  "who  ever  achieves  the  good 
of  which  he  feels  himself  capable  and  in  which 


324 


Is  Death  the  End? 


alone  he  can  rest. "  We  are  always  struggling  to 
chmb  higher-always  striving  to  move  beyond  the 
horizons  which  wrap  us  round. 

Still  nursing  the  unconquerable  hope, 
StiU  cheating  the  inviolable  shade. 

Is  immortality,  you  ask,  desirable?— the  immor- 
tality which  means  not  fulfilment   but  further 
reahzation,  not  the  goal  attained  but  further  pro- 
gress toward  the  goal.>    Why  should  not  the  strong 
healthy,  normal  man  desire  this  immortahty  even 
as  he  desires  the  dawning  of  another  day  upon  the 
earth  ?    I  see  my  Uttle  son,  for  example,  playing  in 
his  nursery  with  his  toys.    All  day  long  he  has 
played    building  his  houses  and   railroads  and 
steamships-and   then,   as  the  shadows  of   the 
evenmg  steal  across  the  sky,  the  httle  legs  begin 
to  drag  and  the  little  eyes  to  droop,  and  the 
moment  comes  for  bed !    Slowly,  reluctantly,  he 
kisses  each  pretty  toy  good-night,  and  bids  them 
to  stay  just  where  they  are,  till  he  comes  to  them 
again  in  the  morning;  and  soon  the  httle  head 
sinks  down  upon  the  pillow,  to  wait  for  the  coming 
of  another  day  when  he  can  resume  his  interrupted 
play.     And  so  with  the  normal  man!    He  toils 
hrough  the  hours  of  the  day  at  his  appointed 
task     He  IS  an  artisan  at  the  bench-a  painter 
at  the  easel-a  musician  at  the  piano-a  teacher 
at  the  desk-a  lawyer  in  the  court.   And  lo,  with 
the  coming  of  the  night,  the  labour  is  put  aside 


Is  Immortality  Desirable? 


325 


that  the  weary  head  and  tired  brain  may  rest     But 
It  is  always  with  reluctance,  and  always  with  antici- 
pation of  the  new  day  when  the  task,  which  means 
so  much,  can  be  resumed.    We  all  desire  another 
day  to  follow  upon  the  night— and  why  should  we 
not  equally  desire  another  life  beyond  the  grave? 
To  hve  on  and  on  and  still  again  to  hve,  with  time 
to  do  all  that  we  want  to  do,  to  experience  all  that 
we  yearn  to  experience,  to  move  from  life  to  life 
through  the  eternity  of  God,  as  the  httle  child 
moves  from  day  to  day  in  the  span  of  mortal 
years— to  achieve  a  httle  more  goodness,  gaze 
upon  a  httle  more  beauty— to  scale  one  more  peak 
and  look  m  rapture  upon  the  higher  peak  beyond 
to  cross  one  more  sea  and  look  upon  the  broader 
sea  that  still  stretches  to  the  dim  horizon,— this  is 
the  aspiration  of  every  worthy  soul.     We  desire 
immortahty  even  as  Tennyson's  Ulysses,  in  his 
old  age,  with  his  wars  upon  the  plains  of  Troy 
finished  and  his  voyage  across  the  stormy  seas  to 
Ithaca  at  an  end,  still  yearned  to  launch  once  more 
upon  the  waters  and  sail  again  to  undiscovered 
lands.    He  thinks  of  all  that  he  has  experienced  in 
the  mighty  years  gone  by-and  yet,  he  says,  what 
is  experience,  but 

....  an  arch  where  thro' 
Gleams  that  untravelled  world,  whose  margin  fades 
Forever  and  forever  when  I  move. 
How  dull  it  is  to  pause,  to  make  an  end, 
As  though  to  breathe  were  hfe.    Life  pUed  on  life 
Were  all  too  little. 


326 


Is  Death  the  End? 


And  then  he  rouses  himself,  calls  his  toil-worn 
mariners  about  him,  and  resolves  to  sail  upon 
another  quest: 

There  lies  the  port ;  the  vessel  puffs  her  sail : 

There  gloom  the  dark  broad  seas  .  .  .  Come,  my 

friends, 
*T  is  not  too  late  to  seek  another  world. 
Push  off,  and  sitting  well  in  order  smite 
The  sounding  furrows ;  for  my  purpose  holds 
To  sail  beyond  the  sunset,  and  the  baths 
Of  all  the  western  stars,  until  I  die, 
To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield. 

^^  And  so  with  every  man,  who,  like  Ulysses,  would 
*' drink  life  to  the  lees.  "  ImmortaHty  is  desirable 
—desirable  as  the  dawning  of  another  day  of 
labour  and  of  love— desirable  as  another  voyage 
to  Ulysses.  Who  would  not  desire  immortality 
when  it  is  interpreted  in  this  way,  which  is  the 
only  reasonable  way?  We  have  seen  that  most 
men  are  indifferent  to  the  whole  question,  and 
prefer  not  to  think  about  it  at  all.  But  why,  if  not 
because  the  majority  of  men  are  little  better  than 
animals,  who  eat  and  sleep  and  live  only  from 
moment  to  moment,  and  never  rise  to  those  realms 
of  spiritual  ideahsm: 

To  follow  knowledge  like  a  sinking  star 
Beyond  the  utmost  bounds  of  human  thought. 

We  have  seen  also  that  there  are  many  men  who 
are  pessimists,  and  who  regard  all  life  as  essentially 


Is  Immortality  Desirable?        327 

bad,   and  therefore  shrink   from  immortality   as 
the   continuance  of  evil.     But  now  we  see  that 
while  life  may  be  as  bad  as  these  pessimists  would 
describe  it,   it  is  at  heart  characterized  by  the 
saving  grace  of  being  improvable  by  our  efforts. 
The  bad  can  be  made  a  Httle  better  through  human 
devotion  and  sacrifice.     And  this  being  the  case, 
what  pessimist,  who  really  hated  the  evil  which  he 
deplored,  would  not  desire  to  Hve  as  long  as  possible 
after   death,  in  order    that,  by    his  efforts,  this 
wretched    human    existence    of    ours    might    be 
improved  as  much  as  possible?     And  then  there 
are  the  scientists  like  Ostwald,  the  philosophers 
like  Shaw,  the  poets  like  Landor,  who  have  lived 
the  fullest  kind  of  life,  and  view  the  extinction  of 
death  with  complacency.     But  why,  if  not  that 
they  think  of  immortality  as  a  condition  of  idle- 
ness and  unending  peace,  with  no  new  truths  to 
discover  and  no  new  visions  of  beauty  to  unveil. 
Even  Ostwald,  as  we  have  seen,  confessed  that  the 
thought  of  death  was  a  bit  unpleasant,  since  he 
knew  that  he  would  have  to  leave  many  things 
undone  and  many  experiences  untried.    Suppose, 
now,  that  Ostwald  could  but  think  of  the  future 
life  as  another  life  like  this,  where,  as  here,  he 
could  ''strive  and  seek,  find  and  never  yield"— 
and   would   he  not  desire  immortality  even   as 
Ulysses  desired  to  launch  his  ship?    And  as  for 
those  persons  who  deplore  immortality  because  it 
tends  to  distract  the  attention  of  men  from  the 
problems  of  this  present  life,  are  they  not  answered 


328 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


by  the  recollection  that,  if  immortaHty  is  what  we 
have  described  it  to  be,  then  the  best  preparation 
for  the  next  life  is  to  live  this  life  for  all  that  it  is 
worth?  We  do  not  idle  away  the  hours  of  today 
because  we  hope  to  be  aHve  tomorrow.  Rather 
do  we  toil  the  harder  at  our  present  task,  that 

.  .  .  each  tomorrow 

Find  us  farther  than  today. 

VI 

The  conclusion  of  this  whole  matter  may  be 
summed  up,  perhaps,  in  the  statement  that  the 
immortal  life  is  desirable  in  the  same  way  and  to 
the  same  extent  that  present  life  is  desirable.    The 
only  persons  who  can  be  at  all  justified  in  longing 
for  extinction  are  the  pessimists,  whose  judgment 
it  is  that  existence  here  is  too  wretched  an  affair  to 
be  endured,  much  less  prolonged.    Obsessed  with 
the  monotony  of  life,  its  dull  routine,  its  work  that 
comes  to  nothing,   its  promises  that  mock,   its 
hopes  that  deceive,  they  would  gladly  be  released 
not  merely  tomorrow,  but  today!      Not  the  fu- 
ture life  in  particular,   but  life  in  general,  they 
would  escape!    With  a  magnificent  consistency, 
they   denounce  all   existence  whatsoever   in  one 
sweeping  indictment  of  despair,   and  thus  turn 
away  from  the  unwelcome  future,  only  as  they 
turn  away  from  the  good-ridded  past  and  the 
hated  present. 

From  such  a  viewpoint,  there  is  perhaps  some 


Is  Immortality  Desirable  ?        329 

justification  for  the  plea,  that  immortality  is  not 

ts::?^u  ^H-r'^'  ^^^^^  -^  ^^y  -  ^^  ^hi  :ie:' 

point      Is  not  life,  to  most  of  us,  abundantly  worth 
while?    Is  not  the  world  full  of  beauty  andlxTst 

failure  its  rewards,  sorrow  its  consolations^    Can 

serv  ceT '  ^""^S"'  '^""'^^  ^^^^  ^he  privilege  of 
pas^Sth  H?  ''  ""''"  ""^^^^  ^^^^^^^^  the 

£  ri^V  ^''''^^'  ^'^"'^^^'  '^'  P^^^^nt  with 
Its  rich  experiences,  the  future  with  its  undis- 
covered possibiHties?  Who  that  is  ,,„^  Z 
barter  one  blissful  moment  of  teXlyir 
fleetmg  drean^s,  for  years  of  pain  and  loss?  'Su 
we  not  a  1,  m  our  best  moments  at  least,  join  the 
hymnist  in  her  psalm  of  gratitude : 

0  God,  I  thank  thee  for  each  sight 
Of  beauty  that  thy  hand  doth  give 

For  sunny  skies  and  air  and  light,—  ' 
O  God,  I  thank  thee  that  I  live. 

Here  is  the  true  attitude  toward  the  problem  of 
human  hvmg!    And  it  is  an  attitude  which   "« 
fies  at  once  the  present  and  the  future.    If  any 

r  Zr"'  1  "'^  '^  ^°°^-    ''  --*--  -  welcome 

conquest  of  pessimism  by  optimism,  and  this  faith 
n  the  desirability  of  immortality  which  is  found  in 
the  basic  faith  in  life,  in  his  great  Epilogue- 


'  ■«'■.«-<.*'     -i 


330 


Is  Death  the  End? 


At  the  midnight  in  the  silence  of  the  sleep-time, 

When  you  set  your  fancies  free, 
Will  they  pass  to  where— by  death,  fools  think,  im- 
prisoned— 

Low  he  lies  who  once  so  loved  you,  whom  you  loved 
so. 

Pity  me? 

Oh,  to  love  so,  be  so  loved,  yet  so  mistaken! 

What  had  I  on  earth  to  do 
With  the  slothful,  with  the  mawkish,  the  unmanly? 
Like  the  aimless,  helpless,  hopeless,  did  I  drivel 

— Being — who? 

One  who  never  turned  his  back  but  marched  breast 
forward. 

Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 
Never  dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted,  wrong 

would  triumph. 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 

Sleep  to  wake. 

No,  at  noon-day  in  the  bustle  of  man's  work-time, 

Greet  the  unseen  with  a  cheer! 
Bid  him  forward,  breast  and  back  as  either  should  be, 
"Strive  and  thrive!"  cry  "speed,— fight  on,  fareever„ 

There  as  here!" 


I 


CHAPTER  X 

MORTAL  OR  IMMORTAL:      DOES  IT  MAKE  ANY  PRAC- 
TICAL DIFFERENCE? 

"The  immortality  of  the  soul  is  a  thing  that  con- 
cerns  us  so  closely  and  touches  us  so  profoundly,  that 
we  must  have  lost  all  feeling  to  be  indifferent  as  to 
knowing  how  the  matter  is.     All  our  actions  and  all 
our  thoughts  must  follow  such  different  paths,  accord- 
ing as  there  are  eternal  goods  to  hope  for  or  are  not, 
that  It  IS  impossible  to  take  a  step  without  regulating 
|t  in    view   of  this  point.  "-Blaise  Pascal.  PensJ, 
vol.  11.,  Art.  2.  ' 


r^NE  last  question  still  remains  to  be  answered 
^     before  our  discussion  of  immortality  can 
be  regarded  as  in  any  sense  complete.     I  refer  to 
the  mquiry  as  to  what  difference  it  makes,  from 
the  standpoint  of  practical  activity,  whether  we 
are  beings  who  are  immortal  or  not.     Will  the 
decision  of  this  question  tend  to  alter  in  any  degree 
the  daily  procedure  of  our  lives— the  work  we 
have  to  do,  the  ideals  we  ought  to  cherish,  the 
relations  which  we  must  have  with  our  fellow- 
men?    Are  we  discussing  a  practical  problem,  of 
concern    to   everybody,    or   a    purely   academic 

331 


332 


Is  Death  the  End? 


question,  which  can  be  of  real  interest  to  nobody 
but  the  speculative  theologian  and  philosopher? 

This  question  has  been  asked  with  more  or 
less  frequency   in   all  ages;   but  it  has  become 
especially  prominent  in  our  time,  which  is  in  no- 
thing more  distinctive  than  in  its  insistence  upon 
applying    to    every    theoretical    proposition    the 
pragmatic  test.     What  difference  does  it  make, 
these  practical-minded  people  ask,  whether  we 
are  to  perish  at  the  moment  of  death,   like  a 
snuffed-out  candle,  or  are  to  continue  to  live  for- 
ever in  some  future  state  of  existence,  the  ex- 
act character  of  which  is  utterly  inconceivable? 
Suppose  that  it  were  proved  tomorrow  that  be- 
yond this  life  there  was  nothing  but  extinction 
for  the  human  soul— or  suppose,  on  the  other 
hand,   that   it   were   similarly  proved   that   this 
earthly  career  was  only  the  beginning  of  an  exist- 
ence  that   was   eternal— what   actual   difference 
would  be  made  by  this  demonstration,  either  one 
way  or  the  other,  in  the  routine  processes  of  our 
daily  lives?    We  have  certain  duties  to  perform, 
certain  responsibilities  to  discharge,  certain  work 
to  do.     In  meeting  these  tasks  of  the  day,  do  we 
ever  ask  ourselves  whether  we  are   performing 
them   as   mortals   or   immortals?     Do   we   ever 
think  of  the  possibility  of  a  future  life  at  all,  as 
we  map  out  our  careers,   choose  our  fields  of 
activity,  and  determine  our  goals  of  achievement? 
Do  we  not  find,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  most  of 
the  things  which  engage  our  attention  are  things  of 


i  I 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     3^3 

time  and  not  of  eternity,  and  that  we  are  nghtlv 
concerned  therefore  with  today  and  not  w,>h  V 
sorrow?  Was  not  Henry  David  Thor^rawLe" 
man  when  in  his  last  hours,  he  was  asSd  by^ L 
friend.  Parker  Pilkbury.  who  sat  by  his  bedsid^ 
whether  he  could  see  anything  on  tL  other  sde' 
and  rephed,  "One  world  at  a  time,  Parker-^n' 
world  at  a  time"?  .  ^irKcr    one 

11 

Any  reasonable  answer  to  this  inquiry  must 
make  xt  perfectly  plain,  at  the  very  outset  Sat 
m  many  important  respects,  this  question  ^f  the 
Me  beyond  the  grave  makes  no  essential  difference 
whatsoever.  It  has  always  been  the  tendency  as 
we  very  well  know,  to  emphasize  the  vitalcTnse 
tta7?if  *"'  '"*  ^"  '^-^^^'^^^^Y'  and  to  dSe 
the  end  of  Ttr?  ""'.'  '''*""  *^^*  ^^^^^h  was 

from  wh.    f  ''""  °^  '"'"  ^^'^l^  be  different 

from  what  they  are  at  the  present  moment.     But 

I  for  one  must  confess  that  I  am  utterly  unable 

to  see  wherem  there  would  be  any  possibiHty  in 

changes  takmg  place.  Mortal  or  immortal,  in 
most  respects  we  would  be  identically  the  s^me 
mdmduals.  From  the  practical  point  rf  view  Jn 
other  words,  the  question  of  immortahty  is,  for 
the  most  part,  of  very  little  importance 

It  has  been  argued  for  unnumbered  centuries 

or  example,  that,  if  men  were  ever  convinced  that 

there  was  no  future  existence,  they  would  forthwith 


I 


334 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


proceed  to  abandon  all  those  moral  principles  and 
spiritual  ideals  which  make  life  sweet  and  clean 
and  beautiful,  and  give  themselves  over  to  '*  riotous 
living/'  as  did  the  Prodigal  Son  in  the  parable. 
If  this  life  were  all,  then  men  would  strive  to  get 
as  much  out  of  this  world  as  they  could  in  terms 
of  food  and  drink  and  money;  and  life  would 
become  not  a  school  for  the  disciplining  of  the 
soul,  but  one  great  orgy  for  the  satisfaction  of 
the  flesh.     Men  would  no  longer  love  one  another, 
live  for  one  another,  die  for  one  another.     They 
would  no  longer  serve  great  causes,  enlist  in  peril- 
ous crusades,  fight  hopeless  battles  for  high  ideals. 
They  would  simply  be  so  many  pigs  pushing  and 
thrusting  for  the  chance  to  get  their  snouts  as 
deep  into  the  trough  as  possible.     If  we  know  that 
we  are  immortal,  then  we  have  every  reason  to  he 
''spiritually  minded,  which  is  life  and  peace";  but 
if  we  know  that  we  are  mortal,  then  we  will  forth- 
with become  "carnally  minded,  which  is  death.'* 
This  is  the  logic  of  St.  Paul,  when  he  said,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  ''If  the  dead 
rise  not,  let  us  eat  and  drink;  for  tomorrow  we 
die."     And  similarly  is  this  the  logic  of  the  Per- 
sian poet,  throughout  the  Rubaiyat,  in  the  face 
not  of  the  certainty  of  mortality  but  merely  of 
the  imcertainty  of  immortality,  as,  for  instance, 
where  he  says, 

Yesterday  this  day's  Madness  did  prepare; 
Tomorrow's  Silence,  Triumph,  or  Despair: 


f. 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     335 

Dri^!  for  you  know  not  whence  you  came,  nor  why • 
Dnnk!  for  you  know  not  why  you  go,  nor  where 

.n!iT  *^''  T^  '""'"•  ^*  ^^^t  gl^"^e,  to  be  very 
good  log:c.     But  if  we  will  consider  the  questio^ 

iT  theT  T, '"  '  "™*'  ^^'^  -k  iu'st  what 
IS  the  essential  connection   between  eating  and 

thTt  thX  \       ""'r^  '^'"^  ^°'"°™'  --  -'"  find 
that  this  logic  of  the  apostle  and  of  the  poet  is  not 

so  sound  as  we  had  at  first  imagined.     On  the  con! 

trary,  wherein  is  there  any  logic  in  their  argument 

whatsoever?    Do  you  really  mean  to  say^ha 

men  are  brave  and  w^omen  pure-that  cauL  are 

espoused,  ideals  cherished,  and  sacrifices  oZd- 

foLeTi  -17'  ^T""'  ^°"g-^^ering.  gentleness, 
goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance,"  which  St 

Paul  enumerates  as  the  "fruits  of  the  spirit,"  are 

commonplaces  of  existence-only  because  of  o^r 

to   sav  'J,';™*^"\°f  the  soul?    Do  you  mean 
to   say   that,  if  somebody  should  actually  dis- 

shTdowX""  *'V'^"  '^  "°^^-^  ^^^y^'^  the 

shadow  of  the  grave,  humanity  would  immediately 
throw  over  all  the  hopes  and  dreams  of  the  ages 

calls,  in  his  The  Rehgton  Worth  Having,  a  "pi^- 
trough  philosophy  of  life?  Do  you  think,  for 
a  moment,  that,  if  Jesus  or  Socrates  or  Augustine 
or  Savonarola  or  Martin  Luther,  or  any  of  the 
other  supreme  heroes  of  the  world's  history,  had 
become  convinced  that  this  life  is  all,  they  would 
at  once  have  abandoned  the  ideals  which  they 


¥^ 


336 


Is  Death  the  End? 


were  cherishing  and  the  work  which  they  were 
doing,  and  surrendered  themselves  to  the  swinish 
task  of  eating,  drinking,  and  making  merry? 

Even  as  a  speculation,  this  conclusion  is  absurd. 
But  fortunately,  in  this  case,  we  do  not  have  to 
rely  upon  speculation.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  men 
have  believed  in  the  past  that  they  were  only 
mortal,  and  still  they  have  held  as  fast  as  ever 
to  the  spiritual  verities  of  the  soul.  It  is  an  in- 
teresting circumstance,  for  example,  that,  in  the 
prophetic  period  of  Israelitish  history,  when  moral 
ideaHsm  reached  what  still  remains,  in  many  ways, 
the  high-water  mark  of  human  achievement,  there 
was  no  beHef  in  an  immortal  life,  at  least  as  we 
hold  the  conception  of  the  future  at  the  present 
day.  The  Hebrews  believed,  of  course,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  there  was  an  existence  beyond  the 
grave;  but  it  was  a  shadowy  kind  of  life — cold, 
dreary,  and  uninviting — and  it  played  no  part  in 
their  philosophy  of  ethics  and  reHgion.  And  yet  it 
was  this  same  age  which  produced  those  prophets 
of  the  soul,  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
whose  glowing  words  still  mark  the  crowning 
expression  of  spiritual  truth.  The  same  thing  is 
true  of  the  Stoics  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Some 
of  these  great  teachers  believed  in  immortaHty,  and 
some  did  not.  But  the  important  thing  to  notice 
is,  that  doctrine  had  no  place  in  their  system  of 
moral  idealism.  "The  highest  good  according  to 
Stoicism,"  says  Professor  Weber  in  his  History 
oj  Philosophy,  /'is  to  practise  virtue  for  its  own 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     337 

sake,  to  do  your  duty  because  it  is  your  duty  " 
regardless  of  whether  you  are  to  live  or  to  die 
when    this   world   has   been    left    behind.^     And 
then,  too,  think  of  the  individual  men,  who  have 
lived,   at   various   times  and   places,   with   souls 
devoid  of  all  beHef  in  an  immortal  life-calm, 
strong,  determined,  sad-hearted  men,— and  still 
have  passed  their  days  upon  the  earth  in  loyalty 
and  love,  and  then  have  laid  them  down  in  their 
graves  without  the  slightest  hope  of  an  awakening 
from  what  they  have  regarded  as  the  last,  long 
sleep.     If  the  logic  of  St.  Paul  is  sound,  then  these 
men  would  have  been  roues  and  debauchees— 
they  would  have  taken  the  cash  and  let  the  credit 
go— they  would  have  desired  at  the  most 

A  Book  of  Verses  underneath  the  Bough, 
A  Jug  of  Wine,  a  Loaf  of  Bread  ..." 

But  as  it  is,  these  men  have  been  among  the  purest 
and   noblest   of   mankind— patient   seekers  after 
truth,  stalwart  soldiers  of  the  common  good,  will- 
mg  martyrs  to  the  cruelty  and  lust  of  church  and 
state.      Think,  for  example,  of  Thomas  Huxley, 
one  of  the  sweetest,  truest,  and  bravest  of  men! 
He  was  self-controlled,  self-sacrificing,  unselfish,  a 
loving  husband  and  devoted  father,   a  faithful 
friend,  a  lover  of  truth,  honour,  and  righteousness, 
a  hater  of  falsehood,  dishonour,  and  iniquity,  a 
man  who  gladly  put  by  the  wealth  of  the  world 

'  See  History  of  Philosophy,  page  145. 
22 


338 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


and  the  praise  of  men  for  the  sake  of  obeying  the 
dictates  of  his  conscience.  And  yet  never  for  one 
moment  did  the  thought  of  immortality  intrude 
upon  his  Hfe.  Even  when  he  stood  by  the  grave 
of  his  oldest  child,  Noel,  overwhelmed  with  grief, 
and  his  friend,  Charles  Kingsley,  besought  him  to 
find  comfort  in  the  immortal  hope,  the  heroic  man 
replied,— "I  have  searched  over  the  ground  of  my 
belief,  and  if  wife  and  child  and  name  and  fame 
were  all  to  be  lost  to  me  one  after  the  other  as  the 
penalty,  still  I  would  not  lie."^ 

The  logic  of  St.  Paul  and  of  Omar,  therefore, 
does  not  hold.      It  makes  no  practical  difference,' 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  moral  life,  whether 
we  are  mortal  or  immortal.     Men  are  good  or 
they  are  bad,  for  reasons  which  are  remote  from 
considerations  as  to  a  future  life.     Prove  that 
there  is  a  future  life,  and  we  will  make  little  or  no 
difference  in  the  character  of  the  man  who  is  now 
living  in  the  belief  that  this  life  is  all.     Prove 
that  there  is  not  a  future  life,  and  we  will  also 
make  little  or  no  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
man  who  is  now  cherishing  the  unconquerable 
hope  of  an  eternal  existence.     "Beauty  is  its  own 
excuse  for  being,"  says  Emerson;  and  the  same 
thing  is  true  of  goodness.     Goodness  is  dependent 
not  upon  any  external  faith  in  immortality  or 
in  anything  else.      Goodness  stands  unsupported 
upon  its  own  feet.     It  makes  no  excuses  and  asks 

'  See  the  Life  of  Thomas  Huxley,  by  Leonard  Huxley,  volume  i., 
pages  233-238. 


it 
If 


I 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     339 

no  reasons  for  itself.     Whether  we  are  mortal  or 
immortal,  whether  we  live  or  die,  right  is  still  right, 
and  wrong  is  still  wrong;  and  we  shall  still  under- 
stand that  we  must  do  the  right  and  avoid  the 
wrong,  though  the  heavens  fall.     We  shall  be  like 
the  heroic  mariner,  of  whom  Seneca  tells  us  in  his 
parable,  who,  when  wrestling  in  his  vessel  with  the 
storm,  cried  out,   ''O  Neptune,  thou  canst  save 
me  if  thou  wilt,  or  thou  canst  drown  me.     But 
whether  or  no,   I   will  hold    my  rudder  true!" 
Those  men  who  have  lived  virtuously,  without  any 
hope  of  immortality,  if  they  have  thought  about 
the  matter  at  all,  have  adopted  the  logic  not  of 
St.  Paul,  but  of  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  sonnet 
entitled.  The  Better  Part: 

^*'We  live  no  more,  when  we  have  done  our  span?" 
*'Well,  then,  for  Christ,'"  thou  answerest,  "who can 
care? 

From  sin,  which  Heaven  records  not,  why  forbear? 
Live  we  like  brutes,  our  life  without  a  plan!" 

So  answerest  thou;  but  why  not  rather  say, 

"Hath  man  no  second  life?     Pitch  this  one  high!" 

Again  it  has  been  argued,  along  very  much  the 
same  lines  as  those  which  we  have  just  indicated, 
that,  if  it  were  ever  proved  that  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  an  eternal  life,  men  would  at  once  give 
up  all  forms  of  useful  activity,  and  surrender  them- 
selves to  idleness,  luxury,  and  pleasure.  They 
might  not  be  sinful  or  corrupt,  but  they  certainly 


340 


Is  Death  the  End? 


would  not  work;  or  they  would  work  only  enough 
to   keep   body   and   soul   together,    during   their 
allotted  span  of  years,  in  some  degree  of  comfort 
and  repose,  and  to  attain  to  that  measure  of  happi- 
ness which  can  only  come  from   some  kind  of 
occupation.     One    thing    is    sure— namely,    that 
men  would  abandon  at  once  all  those  eternal  quests 
which  now  constitute  the  mystery  and  the  glory 
of  existence.     Knowing  that  they  had  but  a  com- 
paratively few  years  to  live,  at  the  very  most,  men 
would  not  bother  to  acquire  knowledge  or  en- 
deavour to  win  the  goal  of  truth.     Knowing  that, 
in  a  generation  or  two,  it  would  all  be  over,  men 
would  not  paint  pictures,  or  carve  statues,  or  com- 
pose music,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  sound  the  depths 
and  scale  the  heights  of  beauty.     Knowing  that 
this  short  life  was  all,  and  that  this  earth  was 
destined  ultimately  to  be  destroyed,  men  would  not 
think  it  worth  while  to  seek  ideals  of  goodness, 
and  try  to  realize  and  perpetuate  those  ideals  in 
the  form  of  social  institutions.     The  work  of  life 
would  not  be  as  it  is  now,  the  quest  of  distant  goals 
and  the  fight  for  forlorn  hopes.     It  would  becom.e 
at  best  a  mere  matter  of  routine— a  search  not  for 
truth  or  beauty  or  goodness,  but  for  a  fair  amount 
of  decent  comfort  in  the  few  troubled  years  of  our 
earthly  pilgrimage.     As  one  writer  puts  it,  in  this 
connection, 

If  I  know  that  after  I  have  lived  ten  years  here, 
that  is  the  end  of  me,  one  kind  of  life  would  be  appro- 


I 


I 


■I 


l4 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     341 

priate  for  me.  But  if  I  know  that,  at  the  end  of  ten 
or  twenty  years,  I  am  suddenly  transferred  to  some 
other  kind  of  life,  and  that  this  life  is  to  continue 
indefinitely,  then  the  whole  problem  is  changed.'" 

Now  here  again  is  a  piece  of  logic  which  seems 
at  first  sight  to  be  plausible  enough,  but  which 
in  reality  is  absolutely  unsound.     Take  our  own 
lives  right  here  upon  this  earth  at  the  present! 
Suppose  we  were  told   tomorrow,  by   somebody 
who  could  see  into  the  future,  that  we  were  going 
to  die  not  at  the  end  of  forty  years  or  fifty  years 
from  today  but  at  the  end  of  only  five  years. 
Would  this  discovery,  make  any  change  in  the 
character  of  our  lives?     Would  we  stop  reading 
books  or  looking  at  pictures  or  listening  to  music, 
because  in  the  brief  space  of  five  years  we  could 
learn  little  more  about  these  things  than  we  know 
and  appreciate  at  the  present  time?    Would  we 
abandon  our  labours  at  our  respective  tasks,  be- 
cause we  could  hope  to  accomplish  very  little,  in 
that  period  of  time,  which  would  be  of  permanent 
service  to  the  world  or  to  our  particular  business 
or  profession  ?    Would  we  work  just  long  enough  to 
accumulate  enough  money  to  keep  us  going,  so  to 
speak,  for  another  five  years,  and  then,  when  the 
last  necessary  penny  was  in  hand,  give  the  rest  of 
our  days  to  idleness  and  pleasure  ?     It  may  be  that, 
if  we  knew  that  we  were  not  going  to  live,  we  would 
do  some  one  or  all  of  these  foohsh  things.     But  if 

»  See  M.  J.  Savage,  Life  Beyond  Death,  page  3. 


342 


Is  Death  the  End? 


we  are  the  men  that  we  ought  to  be,  I  believe  that 
we  would  keep  right  on  with  our  present  work  from 
day  to  day,  without  any  thought  whatsoever  for 
the  future,  whether  it  was  to  be  five,  ten,  or  fifty 
years.     What  difference  does  it  make  if  we  only 
have  this  one  life  to  live  ?    We  are  still  interested  in 
truth,  and  we  propose  to  find  all  the  truth  that  we 
can  in  so  short  a  space  of  time.     We  still  love  the 
beautiful,  and  we  are  going  to  see  all  the  beauty 
that  may  be  visible   to  mortal  eyes.     We  still 
believe  in  goodness,  and  we  are   going  to   bring 
all  the  goodness  into  our  life  and  into  the  lives  of 
other  men  that  we  can  reach  in  a  half  century  or 
so.     So  at  least  it  has  always  been  with  those  men 
who  have  allowed  themselves  to  cherish  no  ex- 
pectations of  a  future  life.     Wilhelm  Ostwald,  for 
instance,  as  we  saw  in  the  last  chapter,  tells  us 
frankly  that  he  does  not  believe  in  a  life  beyond 
the  grave,  and,  what  is  more,  that  he  has  no  desire 
for  such  a  life.     But  does  this  opinion  induce  him 
to  abandon  his  chemical  experiments,  desert  his 
investigations,  and  idle  away  his  days.^     On  the 
contrary!     In  order  that  things  undone  and  un- 
experienced may  be  as  few  as  possible  at  the  mo- 
ment of  his  death,  he  proceeds  to  live  one  of  the 
busiest  lives  that  the  world  of  scientific  endeavour 
has  ever  seen ! 

Here  are  at  least  two  directions  in  which  the 
doctrine  of  immortality  makes  little  or  no  prac- 
tical difference  in  our  lives.  But  now  we  come  to 
a  matter  in  which  it  would  seem  that  this  doctrine 


I 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     343 

makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world.     I  refer  to 
the  great  realm  of  personal  relationships,  which 
comprises  the  largest  and  surely  the  most  precious 
part  of  human  Hving.     From  the  very  start,  these 
lives  of  ours  are  dependent,  in  some  way  or  other, 
upon  the  lives  of  other  people.     The  baby  clings 
with    unknowing    hands   to  its  mother's  breast, 
and  rejoices  in  the  strong  arms  of  its  father.     A 
Httle  later  the  child  binds  up  its  life  with  the  lives 
of  its  brothers  and  sisters;  and  then,  one  by  one, 
finds  friends  and  comrades  in  the  schoolroom  or 
on    the   playground.     With    the   coming  of  ado- 
lescence and  the  first  entrance  into  the  period  of 
maturity,  there  come  those  associations  which  en- 
dure; and  then,  if  God  is  good,  there  come  marriage 
and  parenthood.     Always,  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,  there  are  these  lives  to  which  our  lives  are 
bound — these  friends  and  kinsmen  to  whom  we 
cling — these  dear  ones  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being,  and  without  whom  it  would 
seem  scarcely  worth  while  to  keep  on  living.     And 
always,  sooner  or  later,  to  one  and  all  of  us,  with- 
out prejudice  or  favour,  there  comes  the  loss  of 
some  of  those  we  love;  and  sometimes,  alas!  be  it 
said,  the  loss  of  all.     And  we  stand  stricken,  help- 
less—our light  turned  into  darkness,  our  joy  trans- 
figured into  sorrow.     And   the  only  thing  that 
seems  to  save  us  is  the  thought  that  somewhere 
and  sometime  we  shall  meet  again  all  those  whom 
we  have  loved  and  lost.     In  the  darkness  of  agony 
that  sweeps  down  upon  us,  we  feel  that  we  should 


i, 


344 


Is  Death  the  End? 


perish  utterly,  were  it  not  for  the  '* kindly  light" 
which  leads  us  on 

O'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  torrent,  till 

The  night  is  gone, 
And  with  the  morn  those  angel  faces  smile, 
Which  (we)  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost  awhile. 

"Lost  awhile,"  says  the  hymn  writer!  But 
suppose  that  they  were  ''lost  forever!"  Would 
this  make  no  practical  difference  to  us  here  in 
this  world?  On  the  contrary,  would  it  not  make 
so  great  a  difference  that  we  would  curse  this 
life  as  an  unmitigated  evil,  regret  that  we  had  ever 
been  bom  into  the  world,  and  accept  with  all  its 
horrors  the  awful  philosophy  of  pessimism? 

Here  certainly  would  seem  to  be  a  place  where 
the  answer  to  the  question  of  "mortal  or  im- 
mortal?" makes  a  stupendous  difference  to  us  in 
our  problem  of  living.      And  yet,  even  here,   I 
demur  to  such  a  conclusion.     If  we  are  never  to 
see  again,  in  some  other  life,  those  whom  we  have 
loved  and  lost  in  this  present  life,  I  am  quite  ready 
to  confess  that  this  life  at  once  becomes  a  more 
solemn  experience  than  we  have  ever  been  willing 
to  admit.     But  I  would  deny  that  the  loss  of  the 
immortal  life  and  with  it  our  expectation  of  meet- 
ing our  loved  ones  should  make  us  pessimists  in 
our  attitude  toward  the  world.     This  tragedy  of 
permanent  separation,  awful  as  it  is,  would  still 
fall  far  short  of  outweighing  the  abundant  good 
with  which  life  is  still  filled  to  the  brim.     This  one 


I 


Practical  View  of  ImmortaHty     345 

thing,  if  it  were  proved  to  be  true,  could  not  blot 
out  the  sun,  hide  the  stars,  destroy  the  beauty  of 
the  summer,  banish  the  mystery  of  the  sea,  kill  the 
joy  of  our  love  for  those  still  living  in  the  world, 
or  the  happiness  of  serving  those  who  are  suffering 
even  as  are  we.     Above  all,  our  loss,  however 
grievous  and  permanent,  could  not  deprive  us  of 
all  that  we  had  had  before  the  angel  of  death 
folded  her  wings  above  our  hearts.     Would  we  not 
be  able  to  say  here  exactly  what  Plutarch  wrote 
to  his  wife  when  the  word  was  brought  to  him 
that  their  little  daughter  was  dead. 

Let  us  call  to  mind  [he  said],  the  years  before  our 
little  child  was  born.     We  are  now  in  the  same  con- 
dition  as  then,  except  that  the  time  she  was  with  us 
is  to  be  counted  as  an  added  blessing.     Let  us  not 
ungratefully  accuse  Fortune  of  what  was  given  us 
because  we  could  not  also  have  all  that  we  desired' 
What  we  had,  and  while  we  had  it,  was  good,  though 
now  we  have  it  no  longer.  .  .  .    Remember  also  how 
much  of  good  you  still  possess.     Because  one  page  of 
your  book  is  blotted,  do  not  forget  all  the  other  leaves 
whose  reading  is  fair  and  whose  pictures  are  beautiful 
We  should  not  be  like  misers,  who  never  enjoy  what 
they  have,  but  only  bewail  what  they  lose. ' 

Even  here,  therefore,  in  this  realm  of  friendship, 
comradeship,  love— the  question  of  ''mortal  or  im- 
mortal?" does  not  make  so  much  difference  as  we 
are  prone  to  imagine.  Granted  that  there  is  no 
immortal  life— granted  that  those  whom  we  have 

'  Quoted  in  Savage's  Minister's  Handbook,  page  2,7. 


346 


Is  Death  the  End? 


loved  and  lost  we  shall  never  meet  again— still 
we  may,  nay  must,  believe  that  God  is  good,  that 
the  world  is  fair,  and  that  life  is  worth  the  living. 
The  writings  of  Dr.  Robert  Collyer,  the  eminent 
Unitarian  divine,  are  a  rich  treasury  of  beautiful 
and  inspiring  thoughts;  but  nowhere,  in  all  his 
books,  can  a  fairer  jewel  be  found  than  this: 

If  the  Higher  Powers  should  say  to  me,  *' We  have 
nothing  else  for  you  here  or  hereafter,"  I  think  I 
should  answer:  "I  make  no  claim.  I  would  love  to 
see  those  I  have  lost  once  more;  but  if  it  is  not  to  be 
so,  I  am  still  debtor  for  the  untold  blessings  of  my 
many  years." 

In  all  these  matters,  therefore,  we  must  affirm 
that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  makes  little — or 
should  make  little — practical  difference  in  our 
daily  lives.  Mortal  or  immortal,  we  must  still 
live  the  life  of  the  spirit;  still  seek  unremittingly 
the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good;  still  ''  make 
no  claim,"  but  only  be  ''debtor  for  the  untold 
blessings  of  (our)  many  years."  Whatever  the 
future  has  in  store,  still  does  it  remain  true  that 
"To  them  that  love  God,  all  things  work  together 
for  good." 

Ill 

But  is  this  the  final  conclusion  to  which  we  must 
come?  Must  we  conclude  that  it  makes  no  dif- 
ference, in  any  practical  way,  whether  we  believe 
in  the  future  life  or  not  ?     Must  we  agree  that  the 


*  i 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     347 

doctrine  of  immortality  is  nothing  but  a  purely 
theoretical  proposition,  of  interest  to  the  philoso- 
pher   like  the  problem  of  the  fourth  dimension 
but  of  no  essential  interest  to  the  man  of  practical 
affairs  whose  task  it  is  not  to  juggle  with  specula- 
tions, but  to  find,  as  best  he  can.  the  way  of  hfe? 
So  It   would   seem,   at   this  point!    But  this 
point,  as  It  so  happens,   is  not    the  end.    An- 
other point  lies  ahead,  and  if  we  can  but  reach 
this  point,  our  whole  problem  will  be  transformed 
We  can  best  get  at  this  farther  point  by  throwing 
our  minds  back  over  all  the  road  which  we  have 
been  travelling,  and  asking  the  simple  question 
as  to  what  is  the  exact  difference  in  our  minds 
between  the  conception  of  a  mortal  life  and  the 
conception  of  an  immortal  hfe  ?    If  we  refer  to  the 
theological  teachings  of  the  church,  we  shall  find 
as  we  have  seen  in  much  detail,  that  this  difference 
is  very  great-so  great,  indeed,  that  the  future 
life  has  usually  been  described  as  everything  that 
the  present  life  is  not.     This  narrow  and  wholly 
fantastic  conception  of  immortality,  however   we 
have    altogether   cast   aside   in   favour  of   that 
broad  philosophical  conception  of  the  eternal  life 
as  all  of  a  single  piece.     We  have  laid  down  the 
proposition  that  the  eternal  life  is  just  as  much 
present  with  us  here  as  it  will  ever  be  present  over 
there— that  if  we  are  ever  to  be  immortal  we  are 
immortal  now— and  that  the  future  life,  therefore, 
is  nothing  but  a  continuation,  on  a  little  higher 
plane,  perhaps,  of  the   existence  which   we  are 


348 


Is  Death  the  End? 


enjoying  at  the  present  moment.  To  be  immortal 
means  nothing  more  nor  less  than  to  continue  to 
live  after  we  have  apparently  died. 

From  such  a  point  of  view  as  this,  it  is  evident 
IS  it  not,   that  the  only  difference  between  the 
conception  of  a  mortal  life  and  the  conception  of 
an  immortal  life  is  the  difference  between  a  limited 
and  an  unlimited  existence?     To  believe  that  we 
are  immortal  is  not  to  believe  that  we  are  to  enter 
into  another  and  an  eternal  life— that  we  are  to  go 
to  a  realm  wholly  different  in  character  from  this 
present  earth  and  to  stay  there  forever.     On  the 
contrary,  it  is  simply  to  believe  that  this  present 
life  goes  on— that  what  seems  to  be  finite  is  really 
infinite,  and  that  what  seems  to  be  transient  is  in 
reality  eternal.     Mortality  means  the  definite  and 
final  fixing  of  limitations  of  time,  place,  growth, 
achievement,  service;  immortahty  means  the  im- 
mediate  and   absolute  removal   of   these   limita- 
tions.    Here  and  here  alone,   in   the  matter  of 
extension  and  not  of  character,  is  the  only  essen- 
tial difference  which  can  be  detected  between  these 
two  conceptions  of  human  life. 

Just  here,  also,  in  this  matter  of  the  removal 
of  limitations,  do  we  find  the  practical  as  well  as 
the  theoretical  difference  between  these  two  ideas. 
Mortal  or  Immortal :  Does  It  Make  Any  Practi- 
cal Difference?  you  ask.  And  I  answer,  Yes!  it 
makes  all  the  practical  difference  in  the  world. 
And  this  from  at  least  two  points  of  view— the 
individual,  and  the  social ! 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     349 


IV 


If  we  turn  first  to  the  consideration  of  the 
individual,  we  shall  find,  I  believe,  that  the  differ- 
ence between  the  mortal  and  the  immortal  concep- 
tion of  life  lies  in  the  fact  that,  if  we  are  mortal  we 
are  limited  beings  grappling  with  tasks  that  are 
unlimited ;  while  if  we  are  immortal,  we  are  beings 
endowed  with  unlimited  powers,  which  are  com- 
mensurate, therefore,  with  our  unlimited  respon- 
sibilities. 

What  is  more  evident  than  the  fact  that,  in 
every   realm   of   experience,    we   are   confronted 
by  problems  that  are  infinite  and  eternal— that 
is    to    say,    unlimited— in    their    character?     In 
the  realm  of  morals,  we  are  confronted  by  the 
problem  of  realizing  within  our  souls  the  pure  and 
perfect  life  of  the  spirit;  and  it  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  the  good  life,  that  it  no  sooner  reaches 
to   one   level   of  achievement   than   it   discovers 
some  other  and  higher  goal  far  on  ahead.     If  a 
man  becomes  satisfied  that  he  has  attained  to 
moral    and    spiritual    perfection,    then    at    that 
moment  does  he  become  immoral,  and  unveil  his 
essential  imperfection.     The  moral  life,  in  other 
words,  is  not  an  achievement  but  a  quest.     The 
truly  virtuous  rhan  is  he  who  can  say,  with  St. 
Paul,  I  am  not  one  who  has  ''already  attained,'' 
neither  is  "already  perfect;  but  I  follow  after, 
pressing  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling  of  God." 


350 


Is  Death  the  End? 


The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  world  of  action. 
What  is  more  evident  in  our  pursuit  of  truth  than 
the  fact  that  truth  can  never  be  fully  revealed  to 
the  inquiring  mind?  What  is  more  evident  in 
our  search  for  beauty  than  that  beauty  is  an 
elusive  creature  who  can  never  be  captured  and 
held  in  earthly  bonds?  What  is  more  evident  in 
our  struggle  for  social  justice,  righteousness,  and 
peace,  than  the  simple  fact  that,  as  William  Morris 
put  it,  there  must  always  be  something  that  is 
"better  than  well"? 

And  do  we  not  meet  with  the  same  experience 
m  the  field  of  personal  relationship  ?  Is  it  not  true 
that,  no  matter  how  deeply  and  sincerely  we  may 
love,  we  never  find  it  possible  to  give  expression 
to  the  emotion  which  has  possession  of  our  souls? 
In  other  words,  we  are  limited  beings,  confronted 
by  tasks  that  are  unlimited. 

Suppose,  now,  that  we  are  suddenly  told  that 
we  are  indeed  limited  beings,  in  that  we  shall 
perish  utterly  after  a  few  short  years  upon  this 
swinging  earth !    Will  this  discovery  of  our  limita- 
tions in    time   and   place   and   power   make   no 
practical  difference  to  us  in  our  daily  living?    It 
would  not  persuade  us  to  abandon  ourselves  forth- 
with to  corruption,  idleness,  or  pessimism.     We 
would  still  strive  to  pitch  this  one  hfe  high,  to 
gain  as  much  truth,   beauty,   and   goodness'  as 
possible  m  our  few  years,  to  recognize  and  give 
thanks  for  the  abounding  joy  of  mortality.     But 
on  the  other  hand,  would  not  all  zest,  thrill,  and 


i 

I    _  . 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     351 

ambition  speedily  depart?    Would  not  a  kind  of 
tatahstic  disheartenment  settle  down  like  a  fog 
upon  our  souls?     We  would  still  work,  struggle 
achieve,  as  we  are  men,  but  it  would  be  not  as 
conquerors  but  as  slaves.    And  as  we  ended  our 
few  brief  days  of  existence,  we  would  be  filled  with 
sorrow  that  there  was  so  much  to  do,  and  we  had 
no  more  time  or  strength  at  our  disposal.     The 
thought  comes  again  to  mind  of  Wilhelm  Ostwald 
who  confessing  that  he  has  no  hope  of  immortality' 
confesses  also  that  he  will  regret,  at  the  moment 
of  dea  h     h^t  "there  are  still  many  things  which 
1  should  like  to  do  or  to  experience  before  I  die  " 
But  suppose  that  we  actually  know,  as  we  now 
oelieve,  that  we  are  immortal!    This  will  mean 
as  we  have  seen,   that  all  our  limitations  are 
removed-that  time,  strength,  opportunities  are 
enlarged  to  the  infinite  measure  of  the  tasks  which 
we  are  set  here  to  perform.     What  a  difference 
tills  will  make  to  us  in  outlook  and  in  spirit '    With 
what  exultation  will  we  give  ourselves  to  the  pur- 
suit o    the  highest  ideals  of  the  soul-with  what 
joy  will  we  seek  for  truth,  goodness,  and  beauty- 
with  what  comfort  will  we  surrender  ourselves  to 
love      What  care  we  if  the  goal  of  moral  achieve- 
ment IS  always  far  ahead  in  the  distance  ?-the 

InTiru''  "^  °°^  ^''  °^^^  *°  seek  and  find  that 
goal!    What  care  we  if  truth,  beauty,  and  good- 

nessseem  unattainable  in  this  present  lifei>-this 

hfe  is  only  the  beginning  of  our  existence,  and 

what  we  cannot  find  and  understand  here,  we  shall 


352 


Is  Death  the  End? 


some  day  find  and  understand  over  there.     Wtiat 
care   we,   if  we  cannot  express  at   this   present 
moment  the  full  measure  of  our  affection  for  these 
we  love?— we  can  go  on  loving,  aeon  after  aeon 
through  all  the  centuries  of  our  immortal  life, 
and  some  time  the  greatness  of  our  love  will  be 
made  manifest !    "  Mortal  or  immortal, "  make  any 
difference?    Think  of  the  difference  it  makes  to 
the  old  man  who  comes  to  his  grave  with  the 
consciousness  that  there  are  still  many    thin-s 
which  he  would  like  to  do  or  to  experience  before 
he  dies.     He  will  feel  none  of  the  regrets  experi- 
enced by  Ostwald ;  on  the  contrary,  he  will  be  of 
good  cheer,  in  the  consciousness  that  he  has  only 
begun  to  live,  and  that  he  has  plenty  of  time  still 
to  do  and  experience  all.     Think  of  the  difference 
It  makes  to  the  young  man  who  is  stricken  by 
accident  or  disease  and  dies  before  his  time,  with 
words  unspoken,  work  undone,  hopes  unfulfilled. 
He  will  not  complain  and  curse,  as  he  well  might 
do,  if  this  life  were  all ;  on  the  contrary,  he  will  be 
content  to  die,  in  the  consciousness  that  he  can 
begin  again  over  there  just  where  he  has  left  off 
here.     And  think  of  the  difference  it  makes  to  the 
man  who  has  tried  and  failed— who  has  fought 
and    been    beaten.     He   will   not    perish    in    the 
blackness  of  despair,  that  in  the  one  life  which  was 
his,  he  has  accomplished   nothing;  on   the  con- 
trary, he  will  rejoice  in  the  consciousness  that  his 
life  is  but  a  single  day,  and  that  days  unnumbered 
lie  ahead,  when  he  may  struggle  and  at  last  "make 


Practical  View  of  Immortality    353 

good."  Like  the  man  who  leaves  his  unfinished 
work  at  night,  and  lies  down  upon  his  bed  happy 
and  content  since  he  knows  that  another  day  will 
dawn  for  the  completion  of  his  task,  so  may  we 
as  immortal  beings,  meet  death  unafraid,  whether 
It  come  early  or  come  late,  knowing  that  another 
day  will  come,  and  life  go  on  forever. 


Much  the  same  must  be  said  of  the  practical 
consequences  of  the  immortal  hope  when  viewed 
from  the  social  point  of  view.     For  many  genera- 
tions, of  course,  as  we  know  all  too  well,  the  practi- 
cal outcome  of  the  belief  in  immortality  was  a 
paralysis  of  social  interest  and  social  effort     So 
occupied  were  men  with  the  contemplation  of  the 
life  to  come  that  they  had  no  eyes  for  the  problems 
of  the  life  that  now  is.     So  eager  were  they  to 
prepare  for  entrance  into  the  world  beyond  the 
grave,    that  they  fled  from  the  daily  tasks   of 
this  world  altogether  and  immersed  themselves  in 
hermit  cave  or  monastery  cell.     Or,  if  men  were 
moved  to  the  service  of  their  fellow-beings,  they 
became  so  obsessed  with  the  idea  of  saving  them 
from  the  anticipated  horrors  of  hell,  that  they  had 
no  thought  of  saving  them  from  the  ever-present 
horrors  of  the  earthly  hell  of  poverty,  disease. 
Ignorance,  and  general  wretchedness.     The  practi- 
cal consequences  of  the  immortal  hope  seem  here 
to  have  been  not  so  much  negligible  as  actively 


23 


354 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


disastrous.  Social  problems  were  left  unsolved, 
social  miseries  unbanished,  social  wrongs  un- 
assailed,  simply  and  solely  because  the  absorbing 
thought  of  the  life  eternal  set  soul  against  body, 
heaven  against  earth,  the  mansions  in  the  holy 
city  of  God  against  the  tenements  and  slums  in 
the  unholy  cities  of  mankind ! 

Now  much  of  our  present  indifference,  or  even 
hostility,   to  the  doctrine  of  immortality  repre- 
sents, as  we  have  already  seen,    a  genuine  and 
praiseworthy  reaction  against  this  inverted  view- 
point.    The   modern   passion   for   social   service, 
in  sweeping  us  back  into  the  currents  of  daily 
life,  has  at  the  same  time  swept  us  away  from 
the  barren  shores  of  ' '  other- worldliness. ' '     We  are 
interested  primarily  today  in  this  world  and  not 
in  the  world  to  come.     We  feel  that  we  can  afford 
to  forget  for  a  time  the  possibilities  and  probabili- 
ties of  tomorrow,  if  we  can  thereby  remember  a 
little  more  nearly  the  certainties  of  today.      Our 
business  is  not  to  prepare  for  another  life,  but  to 
utihze  this  life— not  to  wait  idly  for  the  coming 
of  the  night,  but  to  work  lest  the  night  come  when 
no  man  can  work— not  to  anticipate  a  kingdom 
of  heaven  out  there  beyond  the  grave,  but  to 
bring   in  a  kingdom  of  heaven  right  here  upon 
the  earth  where  now  we  stand.     Let  us  wipe  out 
misery,  heal  disease,  abolish  poverty,  destroy  in- 
justice,   emancipate    bondmen,    estabhsh    truth, 
freedom,  love  among  men— and  then,  hap  what 
hap,  we  shall  have  done  our  duty,  and  made  our 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     355 

contribution  to  the  common  good.  Away  with 
the  thought  of  immortality— away  with  this  hope 
of  a  future  world!  Live  for  today  rather  than 
for  tomorrow— live  here,  rather  than  over  there- 
do  the  nearest  task,  rather  than  dream  the  farthest 
dream.  ^'Our  grand  business,"  said  Thomas 
Carlyle,  "undoubtedly  is,  not  to  see  what  hes 
dimly  at  a  distance,  but  to  do  what  lies  closely  at 
hand.'*' 

AH  this,  of  course,  represents  an  almost  incon- 
ceivable gain.  But  one  great  question  still  remains 
unanswered.  What  is  the  reason  for  our  service? 
What  do  we  hope  to  gain  by  struggling  to  clean  up 
the  muck  and  mire  of  the  world?  Why  not  leave 
things  as  they  are,  instead  of  trying,  at  great  cost, 
to  rebuild  the  fabric  of  civiHzation.? 

It  is  just  here,  in  this  matter  of  the  motive 
which  is  behind  and  the  goal  which  is  ahead  of  the 
social  service  of  our  time,  that  we  find  the  great 
difference  which  is  introduced  into  our  lives  by 
the  conception  of  immortality.     If  men  are  mor- 
tal, then  it   is   certain  that   we  are  impelled  to 
the  work  of  social  betterment  and  reform  by  no 
deeper  feeling  or  loftier  motive,  than  that  of  com- 
mon, everyday  pity.     We  seek  to  abolish  poverty, 
wipe  out  slums,  alleviate  inhuman  conditions  of 
toil,    emancipate   child-labourers,    heal   the   sick, 
compensate  the  injured,  protect  the  aged,  only 
as  we  seek  to  revive  a  wounded  bird,  or  rescue  a 
tortured  horse  from  an  inhuman  master— because 

'  See  Essays :  "  Signs  of  the  Times." 


i 

i 


356 


Is  Death  the  End? 


the  sight  of  suffering  offends  our  delicate  sensibili- 
ties and  moves  us  to  compassion.      We  cannot 
bear  that  any  Hving  thing  should  be  made  to 
endure  unnecessary  pain.     We  are  unwilling  that 
any  creature  should  be  denied  the  ordinary  com- 
forts of  life  and  be  so  maltreated  as  to  be  driven  to 
an  untimely  and  wretched  death.     Men,  as  well 
as   animals,    must   be   adequately   fed,    decently 
housed,  humanely  treated.     Therefore  do  we  es- 
tablish our  reform  organizations,  as  we  establish 
our  society  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals, 
and  give  ourselves  to  the  task  of  abolishing  the 
social  disabilities  and   cruelties  under  which  the 
majority  of  men  and  women  live  and  labour,  that 
''even  the  least  of  these,  our  brethren,''  in  the 
human  as  well  as  in  the  animal  realm,  may  be 
rescued  from  the  ''fell  clutch  of  circumstance." 

Now  this  point  of  view,  of  course,  is  all  right  as 
far  as  it  goes.     But  how  far,  pray,  does  it  go? 
Are  we  doing  anything  more  after  all,  than  putting 
man  on  a  common  level  with  the  animals— or 
seeking  any  nobler  aim  than  that  of  providing 
for  every  human  creature  that  moderate  degree 
of  outward  comfort  and  inward  content  which  is 
the  proud  possession  of  the  hog  who  has  a  full 
belly  and  a  clean  bed  of  straw  in  a  sunny  corner 
of  his  pen?    Are  we  taking  any  higher  view  of  life 
than  that  accepted  by  the  savage  who  has  ful- 
filled his  last  ambition,  when  he  has  captured  his 
woman,  scalped  his  foe,  hung  his  tepee  with  good 
meat,  and  filled  his  pipe  with  good  tobacco !  Where, 


Practical  View  of  Immortality     357 

in  this  view  of  social  service,  are  found  the  spiritual 
values  which  are  usually  associated  with  humanity? 
What  place,  in  this  reading  of  the  problem  of  life 
and  destmy,  can  be  found  for  the  familiar  maxim 
that  "man  does  not  Hve  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of 
God?"  If  this  be  all,  what  justification  is  there 
for  those  dreams  and  visions  of  the  soul  for  which, 
again  and  again,  the  truest  men  and  bravest 
women  have  gladly  sacrificed  every  bodily  com- 
fort, every  physical  satisfaction,  and  oftentimes 
life  itself? 

We  have  only  to  ask  such  questions  as  these  to 
find  ourselves  face  to  face  at  once  with  the  im- 
mortal hope  as  the  sine  qua  non  of  this  very  work 
of  social  service  and  social  reform,  of  which  we  are 
now  speaking.     If  this  noble  passion  for  a  better 
world,  which  is  the  dominant  and  noblest  feature 
of  our  age,  is  to  achieve  the  results  it  can  achieve 
and  bring  to  mankind  the  emancipation  which  it 
long  has  promised,  it  must  do  this  under  the 
impetus  of  the  great  faith  in  an  eternal  life !    The 
social  changes  proposed  in  our  time  are  only  seen 
in  their  real  significance  when  they  are  recognized 
as  the  means  of  bringing  men  into  their  spiritual, 
and  not  merely  their  material,  inheritance.    Ade- 
quate food,  decent  housing,  warm  clothing,  clean 
streets,  fresh  air,  sunlight,  living  wages,  leisure, 
recreation,   etc.,   are  all   essential,  as   we   know! 
But  the  important  aspect  of  these  material  condi- 
tions only  becomes  apparent  when  it  is  seen  that 


358 


Is  Death  the  End? 


these  things  must  be  secured  for  men  not  merely 
in   order   that   an   animal   shall   not   suffer,    but 
chiefly  in  order  that  an  immortal  soul  shall  not 
perish!    It   is   here   that   the   matter   of   limits 
appears  again!    The  tragedy  of  poverty  and  all 
its   attendant   miseries    is   not   to   be   found    in 
starved,  frozen,  and  broken  bodies,  but  in  starved 
ideals,  frozen  affections,  and  broken  spirits.     That 
the  poor  man  should  suffer  physically  is  bad,  of 
course,  but  it  is  infinitely  worse  that  he  should 
suffer   morally   and    spiritually.     And    it   is    the 
crowning  crime  of  poverty  that  it  forces  upon  its 
helpless  victims  a  moral  and  spiritual  degradation 
which  parallels  in  every  sense  the  physical.     Man 
is  much  more  than  a  body— more  than  mouth 
and   throat   and    stomach.     Primarily   he   is   an 
immortal  soul.     In  this  world,  however,  body  and 
soul  go  hand  in  hand  together.     Therefore,  when 
an  unjust  world  forces  upon  man  the  curse  of 
economic  misery,  he  is  robbed  not  only  of  all  that 
should  be  his,  but  robbed  as  well  of  all  that  he 
should  he! 

It  is  this  idea,  which  springs  solely  from  the 
conception  of  man  as  an  immortal  being,  which 
puts  behind  the  work  of  social  service  an  uncon- 
querable impulse,  and  puts  before  it  a  not  un- 
worthy goal.  If  death  ends  all,  why  then  we  shall 
be  well  content  if  each  gets  his  bite  and  has  his 
place  to  wallow.  But  if  life  is  in  truth  eternal, 
then  shall  we  not  be  content  until  every  man, 
*'from  the  least  even  unto  the  greatest,''  has  been 


Practical  View  of  ImmortaHty     359 

lifted  up  out  of  the  dens  of  earth  onto  the  heights 
of  the  spirit,  and  has  fulfilled  the  prophet's  vis- 
ion of  knowing  God.     If  we  wish  great  results, 
we  must  command  great  motives.     If  we  want  to 
reach  great  heights,  we  must  "hitch  our   wagon 
to  a  star."     There  is  no  motive  of  social  service 
which  is  comparable  to  the  faith  which  believes 
m  the  eternal  destiny  of  man.     There  is  no  goal 
of  social  service  which  begins  to  loom  as  high  as 
that  complete  emancipation  here  and  now  of  an 
immortal  soul.     ''Thy  Kingdom  come,"   is  our 
one    great    prayer    to    God    these     days.     That 
Kingdom  shall  come,  and  only  come,  when,  as  we 
gaze  into  the  pinched  face  of  the  child  labourer, 
or  look  upon   the  withered  form  of   the  slum- 
dweller,  or  watch  the  despair  of  the  unemployed, 
we  see  not  merely  the  suffering  of  a  mortal  body! 
but  the  present  damnation  of  an  eternal  spirit ! 


I 


CHAPTER  XI 


CONCLUSION 

"  I'm  always  speculating  about  why  I  always  tske 
the  Life  after  Death  for  granted,  while  so  many  people 
start  with  extinction,  and  throw  the  onus  prohandi  of 
a  hereafter  on  the  Immortalist.     I  always  catch  my- 
self seeking  for  a  proof  of  extinction,  and  finding  none. 
I  used  .to  think  once  that    it   was  only    resentment 
against  the  attitude  of  those  who  see  a  proof  of  cessa- 
tion of  existence   in  the  disappearance  of  the  means 
by  which  they  have  detected  it  in  others.    I  mean  the 
existence  of  other  Egos  than  their  own.     For  I  never 
have  seen,  and  never  shall  see,  that  the  cessation  of  the 
evidence  of  existence  is  necessarily  evidence  of  the 
cessation  of  existence.     I'm  very  wordy,  but  it's  dif- 
ficult!"—William  De  Morgan,  in  Joseph  Vance,  page 
371. 


TT  has  again  and  again  been  remarked  that  it  is 
i  an  extraordinary  thing  that  man  should  ever 
have  conceived  of  such  an  idea  as  that  of  the  im- 
mortaHty  of  the  soul.  But  have  we  ever  stopped 
to  realize  how  extraordinary  this  fact  really  is  ? — 
that  it  is  so  extraordinary,  indeed  as  to  constitute, 
like  every  other  superstition,  its  own  best  refuta- 
tion?   Look  at  the  situation  just  as  it  is! 

360 


Conclusion 


361 


I 


Here  at  one  moment  we  see  a  person,  whom  we 
know  and  love,  "alive"  as  we  say.     If  asked  to 
state  what  we  mean  by  ''alive,"  we  refer  first  of 
all  to  the  elemental  fact  which  characterizes  all 
living    creatures— namely,    response    to   external 
stimuli  or  impressions.     This  person  shivers  when 
it  is  cold,  seeks  the  shadow  when  it  is  warm,  leaps 
away  from  sudden  peril,   cries  out  when  hurt, 
flees  or  defends  himself  when  assailed  by  an  enemy! 
*'If  you  prick  us,  do  we  not  bleed?  if  you  tickle  us, 
do  we  not  laugh  ?  if  you  poison  us,  do  we  not  die  ? " 
In  the  case  of  a  human  being,  however,  there 
are  those  higher  evidences  of  life  which  are  to  be 
found  in  the  various  actions  which  originate  in 
response  not  to  the  external  stimuli  of  the  environ- 
ment, but  to  the  internal  impulses  of  the  will. 
Thus  we  hardly  feel  that  a  man  is  ''alive,"  if  he 
does  nothing  more  than  merely  react,  after  the 
fashion  of  an  animal,  to  the  various  impressions  or 
accidents  which  he  encounters  in  the  outer  world. 
In  addition  to  this,  he  must  himself  initiate  action 
and  thus  show  himself  to  be  a  free  agent.     Suc- 
cessful   suppression,   diversion,   or  utilization  of 
instinctive  reactions  to  the  influences  of  the  envi- 
ronment—voluntary movements  of  the  body  or  its 
limbs,    directed   to   the   fulfilment   of    conscious 
aims— the  conception  of  a  plan  of  action  involving 
forethought  and  hazard— the  ordered  expression 
of  thought  and  emotion  through  the  media  of  art, 
literature,  and   music— these   are   a   few  of   the 
things  in  which  we  find  evidences  of  what  we  call 


362 


Is  Death  the  End? 


life.  The  fact  that  these  things  comprise  the 
essence  of  the  Hfe  of  which  we  are  so  keenly  aware 
within  ourselves,  makes  us  assume  that  their 
appearance  in  other  persons  is  evidence  of  their 
possession  of  a  life  identical  with  our  own. 

Thus  it  is  at  one  moment!     Then,  at  the  next 
moment,   everything  is  changed!    The  body  is 
still,  the  ears  deaf,  the  lips  sealed!     The  hands 
no  longer  grasp  their  tools,  the  feet  stop  short 
upon  their  errands,  the  eyes  look  out  upon  no  far 
horizons!     If  there  were  prophecies,  they  fail;  if 
there  were  tongues,  they  cease;  if  there  was  know- 
ledge, it  vanishes  away !     Not  even  is  there  any 
response  to  external  impressions.     This  body,  so 
strangely  inert,  may  be  cast  into  the  flames,  but 
it  does  not  struggle.     These  eyes  may  be  pierced 
with  light,  but  they  do  not  move.     These  lips 
may  be  smitten  and  seared,  but  they  do  not  cry 
out!     Not  a  trace  of  this  vitality,  which  we  feel 
throbbing  within  our  own  beings,   can  now  be 
found  within  the  frame  of  this  wife,  or  child,  or 
friend.     All  that  we  mean  by  life  is  ended.    And 
therefore  do  we  begin  to  speak  of— death ! 

Now  it  is  extraordinary,  you  say,  that,  in  the 
face  of  this  destruction  or  disappearance  of  every 
evidence  of  life,  man  should  ever  have  con- 
ceived the  idea  that  this  life  is  somewhere  and 
somehow  still  surviving.  True  enough!  Is  it 
not  so  extraordinary,  indeed,  as  to  be  manifestly 
absurd?  It  is  understandable  that  primitive  man 
should   look   upon    the   cold,    still,    unresponsive 


Conclusion 


363 


face  of  his  mate  and  believe  that  that  mate  was 
still  ahve.     This  is  no  more  remarkable  than  that 
this  same  primitive  man  should  believe  that  he 
could  injure  his  enemy  by  sticking  pins  into  the 
wax  or  clay  image  of  his  body— or  that,  when  he 
was  ill,  he  was  the  victim  of  demons  who  could 
only  be  driven  away  by  hideous  noises,  vile  smells, 
and  priestly  incantations— or  that,  when  he  died' 
he  could  take  his  horse,  and  hunting  dogs,  and 
weapons  with  him  into  the  next  worid,  by  the 
simple  process  of  having  them  buried  with  his 
body.     Early  man  was  the  victim  of  innumerable 
superstitions,  of  which  the  idea  of  the  survival  of 
the  soul,  after  the  death  of  the  body,  is  only  one. 
But  surely  modern  man  in  this  far-advanced  age 
of  reason  and  enlightenment,  is  not  going  to  be  the 
dupe  of  any  such  wonder-tale  as  this!     We  take 
our  ideas,  today,  upon  evidence.     We  decline  to 
believe  anything  that  is  not  supported  by  the  facts 
of  observation  and  experiment.     We  will  gladly 
go  as  far  as  verified  experience  will  take  us;  but 
we  cannot  go  beyond,  and,  what  is  more  important 
still,    we   cannot   go   in    the   opposite   direction! 
Therefore  are  we  forced  to  throw  away  all  hopes 
of  a  life  beyond  the  grave.     This  is  an  idea  which 
not  only  has  no  evidence  in  its  support,  but  stands 
in  flagrant  contradiction  of  every  sign  which  life 
has  given  us  of  its  reality.     Right  here  before  our 
face  and  eyes  we  see  life  come,  and  we  see  life  go. 
We  mark  at  once  its  beginning  and  its  end.     The 
beginning,  in  the  individual  as  well  as  in  the  cosmic 


.IS 


364 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


sense,  may  be  hazy,  for  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other,  the  process  eludes  our  observation.  But 
the  end  is  as  plain  as  the  noonday  sun.  Eve;ry 
detail  of  the  death  process  has  been  observc^d; 
and  here  at  the  close,  as  an  unanswerable  exhibit, 
is  the  dissolving  body.  Here,  so  tangible  that 
we  can  touch  it,  dissect  it,  measure  it,  is  death! 
How  absurd,  in  the  face  of  this  positive  evidence 
of  the  cessation  of  vitality,  to  continue  to  believe 
in  its  survival !  Why  not  be  honest  with  oursehes 
and  with  the  world,  and  confess  that  if  any  evi- 
dence is  to  be  trusted  for  any  conclusion,  death  is 
what  it  appears  to  be — the  end.^ 


II 


Such  is  one  way  of  looking  at  this  problem,  un- 
doubtedly! 

But  that  this  is  not  the  only  way,  nor  even  the 
usual  way,  needs  no  demonstration  at  this  point 
in  our  argument.  So  far  from  regarding  the  id(?a 
of  immortality  as  extraordinary,  most  men  have 
gone  to  the  other  extreme  of  thinking  it  extra- 
ordinary that  such  an  idea  as  that  of  death  should 
ever  have  found  lodgment  within  the  human 
mind!  So  extraordinary  is  this  fact,  indeed,  that, 
in  the  judgment  not  only  of  the  ignorant  masses 
but  also  of  the  majority  of  the  ablest  thinkers 
and  bravest  prophets  of  all  ages,  it  may  be  said  to 
constitute  its  own  best  refutation. 

Persons  who  have  approached  the  question  frora 


Conclusion 


365 


this  point  of  view  have  not  been  oblivious  to  the 
facts  of  physical  dissolution,  to  which  we  have 
referred.  Full  often  have  they  sat  by  the  bed  of 
death,  and  followed  the  lifeless  body  to  the  tomb. 
But  these  commonplace  facts  have  appeared  to 
them  to  be  insignificant  as  compared  with  certain 
other  facts  which  should  not,  and  indeed  cannot, 
be  ignored. 

First  of  all,  they  have  been  simply  overwhelmed 
by  the  evidence  which  has  been  borne  in  upon  their 
senses  by  every  wind  that  blows,  every  flower  that 
blooms,   every  star  that  wheels  upon  its  silent 
pathway  through  the  skies,  that  the  universe,  in 
its  every  minutest  particle  as  well  as  in  its  every 
remotest  comer,  is  throbbing  with  ceaseless  life. 
Death  is  the  transient,   life  the  eternal,   thing; 
death  the  appearance,  life  the  reality!    In  the 
early  days  of  man's  experience,   this  conviction 
found  expression  in  Animism,  which  explained  the 
omnipresence  of  life  in  nature  by  the  hypothesis 
that  a  personality,  or  divine  being  of  some  kind, 
was  resident  within  each  particular  object,  and 
thus  the  initiator  of  its  activity.     In  the  early 
days  of  exact  thinking,  this  primitive  anthropo- 
morphism was  superseded   by  such  philosophic 
conceptions  as  that  of  Heracleitus,  who,  unlike 
Thales  and  Anaximander,  saw  no  one  substance 
at  the  heart  of  things,  but  only  unceasing  change 
from  one  substance  to  another.     In  our  own  time, 
we  have  such  carefully  formulated  scientific  con- 
ceptions as  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force,  the 


366 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Conclusion 


doctrine  of  motion  as  the  source  of  matter,  and 
the  all-mclusive  principle  of  evolution.    But  the 
idea  at  the  heart  of  these  theories,  both  ancient 
and  modem,  has  in  all  cases  been  the  same— that 
everything  is  alive;  that  nothing  comes  to  an  end 
or  IS  extmguished;  that  even  this    phenomenon 
which  we  call  death  is  only  the  beginning  of  new 
phases  of  the  one  unescapable  reality.     Every  new 
fact  discovered,  every  new  experience  undergone 
from  the  dawn  of  the  world  to  the  present  moment' 
has  but  served  to  give  added  emphasis  to  this 
conviction.     Originally  a  matter  of  feeling,  it  is 
today  become  a  matter  of  knowledge.      Once  a 
theme  for  the  more  or  less  fanciful  speculations  of 
religion  and  poetry,  it  is  now  become  the  accepted 
basis  of  the  cold,  hard  propositions  of  science 
Opmion   in    our   day    is    fast    becoming    unani- 
mous.    However    they   may    differ    in   outlook 
point  of  view,  and  ultimate  conclusion,  poet  and 
prophet,    philosopher    and    theologian,    scientist 
and  seer,  are  at  least  agreed  in  this— that  the  uni- 
verse is  alive,  and  that  in  life,  therefore,  and  not 
in  death,  is  to  be  found  the  secret  of  its  origin  and 
destiny. 

Along  with  our  growing  understanding  of  nature 
as  a  hving  organism,  has  gone  the  more  wonderful 
discovery  of  ourselves— our  place  in  the  universe 
and  the  powers  at  our  command  for  the  conquest 
of  the  universe.  In  the  beginning,  man  seemed 
to  be  the  least  of  all  earth's  creatures.  He 
trembled  at  the  hghtning  which  clove  the  sohd 


367 


darkness  of  the  midnight  like  a  flaming  sword;  he 
stood  m  awe  before  the  tumbling  grandeur  of  the 
sea;  he  bowed  his  head  before  the  tempest-  he 
escaped  to  hill  and  upland  from  the  river-floods. 

He  fled  the  cave-bear  over  the  rocks  full  of  iron  ore 
and  the  promise  of  sword  and  spear;  he  froze  to  death 
upon  a  ledge  of  coal;  he  drank  water  muddy  with 
clay  that  would  one  day  make  cups  of  porcelain-  he 
chewed  the  ear  of  wild  wheat  he  had  plucked-  he 
gazed  with  dim  speculation  in  his  eyes  at  the  birds 
that  soared  beyond  his  reach. ' 

Then    suddenly,    at    some    forgotten   and    yet 
epochal  moment  in  the  development  of  humanity, 
there  came  the  time  when  man  found  the  secret 
of  power.     A  sharp  stick,  driven  into  the  soil, 
turned  the  furrow  for  the  planting  of  the  seed.    A 
heavy  stone  or  a  loose  branch,  snatched  hurriedly 
m  flight  and  hurled  in  desperation  against  some 
pursumg  monster,  was  the  weapon  which  made 
the  jungle  a  hunting-ground  for  his  prowess.     A 
hollow  log,  afloat  upon  the  waters,  tempted  him 
to  use  the  pathways  of  the  sea.     Huts  and  hovels 
followed  naturally  upon  rude  bowers  in  the  trees 
and   dark   caves   within    the   mountain-sides   as 
shelters  from  the  storm.     The  skins  of  slaughtered 
beasts  were  made  his  covering  against  the  cold. 
The  horse  and  ox  were  tamed  to  be  his  servants. 
The   flowing   stream   became   his   burden-bearer, 
and  all  the  winds  blew  fair  upon  the  lifted  sails  of 

'  See  H.  G.  Wells's  The  World  Set  Free,  page  12. 


368 


Is  Death  the  End? 


Conclusion 


369 


ship  and  mill.     Even  fire  was  caught  and  made  to 
do  his  bidding.     Then  man  became  more  social. 
Male  no  longer  raged  in  brutish  madness  against 
male.     Family  joined  with  family  in  the  joint 
labours  of  field  and  pasture  and  the  chase.     Har- 
vests laughed  beneath  the  autumn  suns.    Herds 
of  cattle  grazed  upon  a  thousand  hills.     Villages 
sprang   up   in   sheltered   vales.     Then   with   co- 
operation in  the  task  of  living,  came  leisure;  and 
with    leisure,    the    rude   beginnings   of   thought. 
Man  played  with  the  wet  clay  of  the  drinking- 
pools,  and  moulded  it  into  cups  and  bowls,  which 
he  found  to  his  surprise  held  water.     He  scratched 
idly  upon   the  smooth    faces   of   the  cliff,    and 
was   astonished    to   see    pictures   of    the    things 
he  knew  about  him.     He  sucked  the  reed  which 
he  [had   snatched  from  the  river-bush  and  was 
amazed  to  hear  sweet  noises,  like  the  notes  of 
birds.     He  gazed  with  aimless  brooding;  upon  the 
kindly  sky,  the  infinite  sea,  the  rusliinpj  mountain- 
stream,  and  found  himself  wondering/  who  nuide 
them.     He  blinked  in   speechless   terror  ut   the 
lightning,  the  sweeping  storm,  the  he^vving  earth- 
quake, and  asked  what  men  were  these  that  could 
thus  spHt  trees  asunder,  level  his  buildings  to  the 
ground,  and  shake  the  earth  as  he  himself  might 
shake  a  brandished  club.     And  ere  he  knew  it, 
he  was  rearing  altars  upon  the  hi^h-places,  and 
offering  sacrifices  to  those  unseen  bein}2;.s  who  alone 
defied  his  waxing  power  of  hand  and  brain.     And 
more  and  more  as  he  thouglit  upon  these  wondrous 


things,  did  he  find  himself  dreaming  dreams  of 
greater  conquests  than  any  that  he  had  seen— 
seeing  visions  of  loftier  heights  of  knowledge  and 
achievement    than    any    that    he    had    climbed! 
Curiosity,  expectation,  ambition,  the  joy  of  attain- 
ment, the  challenge  of  the  untried,  the  lure  of  the 
unknown,  and  always  to  some  degree  or  other  the 
sheer  drive  of  necessity— all  these  played  their 
part  as  motives  in   the  great  drama  of  human 
expansion.    And  thus  through  scores  and  hundreds 
of  centuries  of  lust,  greed,  struggle,  and  mutual 
aid,  did  man  grow  in  strength  and  understanding, 
until  today  he  stands  upon  the  dizzy  heights  of 
what  we  call  his  twentieth  centur>^  civilization 
with  its  crowded  cities,  its  va.<;t  dcvclo])incnts  of 
natural  resources.  il$  jjiupendous  indu.*^tr«il  enter- 
prises,  its  myriad  pciths  of  co:        rxx  upon  land 
and  sea,  its  miracles  of  steam  and  electricity,  il^ 
gigantic  armaments  of  war,  its  dazzUng  w^lth  knd 
sordid  poverty,  its  dreams  of  peace  and  social 
justice,  and  its  miKhty  passion  for  U)e  fulfilment 
of  these  dreams!    What  a  Ule  is  here— from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  a  tale  of  man's  discovery  of 
himself  I 

And  out  of  it  has  come—what?  Cities,  em- 
pires, civilizations,  religions— these  obviously 
enough!  But  in  and  through  and  over  all  these 
outward  things,  the  growing  realization  upon  the 
part  of  man  of  t}>e  astounding  fact  that  he  is  a 
centre  of  life  and  power— that  he  is  an  independent 
bcin^,  conscious,  assertive,  purposeful— and  that 


370 


Is  Death  the  End? 


as  such  he  is  something  entirely  apart  from  such 
outward  material  entities  as  the  universe  upon  the 
one  hand  and  his  body  upon  the  other.     These 
live,  just  as  he  Hves,  to  be  sure.     Life  is  as  truly 
without   as   within   him.     But   he   is   more   and 
greater  than  these — he  is  separate  from   them, 
above  them,  the  master  of  them.     What  is  the 
universe,  after  all,  but  a  vast  treasure-house,  in 
which  he  finds  the  articles  that  he  needs  for  his 
comfort  and  the   forces   that   he   needs  for   his 
undertakings  ?     What  is  his  body,  but  the  inmost 
chamber  of  his  house,  the  closest  garment  of  his 
spirit,  the  nearest  and  handiest  tool  for  his  work.^ 
It  is  impossible  to  consider  himself  as  in  any  way 
confined  to  the  essentially  narrow  limits  of  these 
realities.    Long  since  man  has  learned  to  cast  away 
his  body,  with  indifference  or  even  joy,  on  the 
battlefield,  in  the  torture-chamber,  at  the  stake 
or  on  the  gibbet,  when  his  soul  had  made  it  clear 
that  such  a  sacrifice  was  the  best  use  to  which, 
at  the  moment,  the  body  could  be  put.     Is  it 
impossible  even  to  imagine  him,  at  some  distant 
time  when  all  things  are  hterally  ''under  his  feet,  " 
deciding  to  smash  this  planet  into  bits,  if  thereby 
it  might  be  fashioned  more  nearly  to  the  heart's 
desire.     And  in  this  case  exactly  as  in  the  oth(;r, 
the  soul  which  conceives  and  does  these  mighty 
works,  must  still  abide.     As   well   think   of   the 
painter  failing  when  his  brush  is  thrown  away,  or 
the  poet  dying  when  his  pen  is  gone,  as  to  think  of 
man  perishing  when  his  body  is  broken  or  worn  out. 


Conclusion 


371 


As  well  think  of  the  householder  disappearing 
when  his  home  is  dismantled,  or  the  chemist  dead 
when  his  laboratory  is  destroyed,  as  to  think  of 
man  blotted  out  when  this  earth  has  been  returned 
to  the  roving  fire-mist  from  which  it  came !  Man  is 
a  life  apart!  He  has  a  body,  a  home,  a  country,  a 
planet—but  he  is  a  soul !  Therefore  shall  he  liVe 
on,  as  truly  as  the  living  cosmos,  which  was,  and 
is,  and  shall  be  evermore ! 

Such  are  the  facts  of  life  which  have  always 
pressed  upon  the  minds  of  the  majority  of  men, 
and  made  them  look  upon  the  so-called  facts  of 
death  as  of  no  significance.     What  is  a  dead  body 
in  the  face  of  the  living  universe  and  the  living 
soul?     The  idea  of  immortaHty,  you  say,  extra- 
ordinary!    Nay,  it  is  the  idea  of  death  which  is 
extraordinary!     So  extraordinary  indeed  is  this 
idea,  that  never  have  men  been  able  at  any  time 
in  one  common  body  of  assent,  to  believe  it.     In 
the  distant  past  as  today,  and  today  as  in  the  dis- 
tant past,  they  have  laid  the  inert  body  tenderly 
away,  in  gratitude  for  the  revelation  it  has  borne 
of  the  spirit's  presence,  and  hoped  ever  against 
hope,  beHeved  in  spite  of  unbelief,  that  the  spirit 
was  somewhere  and  somehow  living  on.     Here  is 
the  end  of  the  evidence  of  life,  but  surely  not  the 
evidence  of  the  end  of  life!     Life  has  no  end!     It 
is  by  its  very  nature  eternal!     Death  is  only  an 
illusion  of  the  senses— at  the  very  most  an  absence 
of  that  which  has  been  present  and  is  now  else- 
where.    Therefore   is    the   dead    body   a   paltry 


372 


Is  Death  the  End? 


thing,  which  in  the  face  of  stars  and  seasons  and 
species,  of  knowledge  and  aspiration  and  will, 
argues  for  us  nothing — absolutely  nothing!  A 
change  has  come,  no  doubt!  But  never  yet,  in 
anything  that  man  has  seen  or  known  of  this  great 
universe  of  life  without  and  within  himself,  has  a 
change  meant  an  end.  On  the  contrary,  it  has 
always  and  everywhere  meant  a  fresh  beginning. 
And  if  this  is  universally  true  of  things  which 
are  seen  and  known,  why  should  it  not  be  true  of 
things  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor 
the  heart  of  man  conceived  ? 

Ill 

Right  here,  now,  in  a  dead  body  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  a  living  soul  in  a  living  universe  upon 
the  other,  do  we  have  the  whole  of  the  issue  that 
is  involved  in  the  problem  of  immortality.  If  we 
bcHeve  in  the  body,  then  its  cessation  of  all  re- 
sponse to  external  stimuli  and  of  all  initiation  of 
activity,  must  convince  us  that  the  end  has  come. 
If,  however,  we  believe  in  the  soul,  and  in  the  on- 
sweeping  surge  of  the  great  universe  in  which  it 
dwells,  then  the  aeons  of  life  herein  revealed  must 
outweigh  the  dissolution  of  the  flesh,  and  teach 
us  that  indeed 

There  is  no  death.     What  seems  so  is  transition ! 

The  alternative  is  plain.  One  choice  or  the  other 
must  be  made;  and  according  as  we  choose,  so 
must  we  believe. 


Conclusion 


373 


But  is  there  not  something  more  involved  in  this 

alternative  than  has  yet  been  indicated?     Is  our 

choice  really  confined  to  what  a  dead  body  can 

tell  us  about  life  and  its  end,  and  what  life  itself 

can  tell  us  about  this  same  phenomenon?     On 

the  contrary,  are  we  not  here  brought  face  to 

face  with  two  fundamental  and  mutually  exclusive 

viewpoints  of  the  universe  and  all  that  it  contains 

of  mystery  and  wonder?     Is  not  our  problem  of 

mortality  vs.  immortality  an  epitome  of  the  whole 

great  problem  of  existence?     Are  we  not  here 

confronted,  after  all,  not  so  much  with  the  question. 

What  shall  we  believe  comes  after  death,  as  with 

the  question.  What  shall  we  accept  as  our  basic 

philosophy  of  life? 


IV 


In  moving  thus  from  the  lower  ground  of  a 
particular  problem  to  the  higher  ground  of  a 
fundamental  generalization,  we  again  find  our- 
selves face  to  face  with  a  single  alternative.  On 
the  one  hand,  there  is  what  may  be  called  the 
materialistic  view  of  life.  From  this  point  of  view, 
the  universe  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
combination,  in  terms  of  evolution,  of  matter  and 
energy.  ^  In  the  beginning  of  things,  if  it  is  possible 
to  imagine  such  a  beginning  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, there  existed  a  single  atom  of  matter  plus  a 
single  spark  of  energy.  These  two  original  entities 
were  at  some  wonderful   moment   and   in   some 


374 


Is  Death  the  End? 


wonderful  way  brought  together  into  a  single  unit 
of  life,  and  everything  that  has  appeared  in  the 
universe  from  that  far-away  time  to  the  pres(3nt 
moment,  has  been  simply  the  result  of  the  un- 
ceasing mechanical  interplay  of  these  two  basic 
realities.     Matter  and  energy!  these  explain  all 
that  has  been,  all  that  is,  and  all  that  ever  shall 
be,  from    the   lowest   unicellular   organism    that 
was  evolved  from  the  primeval  slime  to  the  noblest 
man  and  purest  woman  who  ever  played  their 
heroic  parts  in  the  sublime  drama  of  humanity. 
Matter? — a  fortuitous  concourse  of  whirling  atoms! 
Energy?— a  blind,   unreckoning,  unfeeling  force! 
The   universe?— a   perfectly    adjusted    and    thus 
perfectly  working  mechanism!     Man?— the  high- 
est of  the  mammalian  vertebrates!     Thought? — 
a  secretion  of  the  brain,  as  bile  is  a  secretion  of  the 
liver!     God? — an    anthropomorphic    personifica- 
tion of  the  physical  world-process!'     The  soul? — 
a  convenient  phrase  to  cover  the  passing  sensation 
of  self-consciousness!     Religion? —  a  superstition 
which   has   survived   with   a   peculiar   degree   of 
persistency  from  the  early  childhood  of  the  race! 
Thus  does  the  materialistic  philosophy  reduce  life 
to  its  lowest  terms,  and  interpret  phenomena  in 
the  light  of  these  terms. 

Side  by  side  with  this  materialistic  point  of  view, 
there  rims,  as  there  has  always  run,  another  point 
of  view,  which  we  may  call  for  lack  of  a  better 

^  Or,  as  Ernst  Haeckel  has  expressed  it,  in  his  Riddle  of  the 
Universe,  a  kind  of  "gaseous  vertebrate"! 


Conclusion 


375 


word,  the  spiritual.     Adherents  of  this  philosophy 
recognize,  with  the  adherents  of  materiaHsm,  the 
ultimate  analysis  of  the  constituent  substance  of 
the  world  into  matter  and  force.     But  they  refuse 
to  believe,  with  these  same  materialists,  that  these 
words   mean   anything   particularly   illuminating 
in  themselves.     What  is  matter,  they  insist  upon 
asking?     What  is  force?    And  in  answering  these 
questions  they  insist  also  upon  looking  at   the 
problem  from  the  point  of  view  not  of  genesis ^  if  we 
may  so  express  it,  but  of  revelation.     Nobody  could 
tell  the  meaning  of  the  flower  by  confining  atten- 
tion to  the  ugly  bulb  which  is  planted  in  the  earth ! 
The  historian  would  go  far  astray  in  his  interpreta- 
tion  of  humanity,   if  he  never  travelled   in   his 
studies  beyond  the  ape-man  of  the  African  jungles ! 
The   prophecy    of    Shakespeare   could    never   be 
detected  from  however  careful  a  study  of  the 
embryo   in   the   mother's   womb!     If   we   would 
know  the  meaning  of  the  tree  of  life,  we  must  study 
not  its  roots  but  its  fruits.     "By  their  fruits,  ye 
shall  know  them'*—  a  fact  as  true  in  the  realm  of 
botany  and  biology  as  in  the  realm  of  morals ! 

Thus  it  is  that  the  spiritualist,  if  we  may  call  him 
such,  breaks  at  the  very  start  with  the  materiaHst ! 
He  goes  to  the  end  of  life's  journey,  rather  than  to 
the  beginning,  for  the  explanation  of  this  matter 
and  force  about  which  the  materialist  talks  so 
much.  And  here  he  finds  phenomena  in  abund- 
ance which  seem  to  take  him  into  the  realms  of 
which  the  materialist,  apparently,  has  never  even 


376 


Is  Death  the  End  ? 


Conclusion 


377 


dreamed.    The  ''dirt  philosophy ''  of  life  may  serve 
very  well,  perhaps,  so  long  as  we  are  dealing  mercily 
with  dirt.    MateriaHsm  may  answer  as  an  explana- 
tion of  star  dust,  and  seaweed,  and  earth-worms, 
and  barnacles.     But  what  about  the  pyramids  of 
Egypt,  the  Parthenon  of  Athens,  the  cathedrals  of 
Milan  and  Cologne.^    What  about  the  Iliad,  the 
/Eneid,  Faust  7    What  about  the  Venus  de  Medici 
and  the  Sistine  Madonna  ?     What  about  the  Fifth 
Symphony  and  Tristan  tend  Isolde  ?  What  about  the 
prophets  of  Israel,   the  philosophers  of  Greece, 
the  Stoics  of  Rome,  the  martyrs  and  saints  of 
Christianity,  the  patriots  of  France  and  Germany, 
the   Pilgrims,    Cromwell's    Ironsides,    the   Aboli- 
tionists, the  Garibaldian  Red-Shirts?     What  about 
Leonidas,    Regulus,   Judas   Maccaba^us,    William 
Wallace,  Arnold  von  Winkelried,  Hampton  and 
Pym,  Nathan  Hale,  Samuel  Adams  and  Patrick 
Henry,  Washington,  Lincoln,  Mazzini,  Gladstone, 
Savonarola,     Luther,     John     Wesley,     Theodore 
Parker,  Socrates,  Jesus !     What  about  the  millions 
of  unnamed  men  and  w^omen,  who  in  all  ages  and 
all   places,    have    "subdued    kingdoms,    wrought 
righteousness,  stopped  the  mouths  of  lions,  waxed 
valiant  in  fight  .  .  .  were  starved,  sawn  asunder, 
slain    with    the    sword    .  .  .  destitute,    afflicted, 
tormented!"      Does    materialism    explain     such 
phenomena  as  these.?     Does  matter  plumb  these 
depths  of  suffering,  or  force  scale  these  heights  of 
devotion?     Here  is  life  at  its  best  and  its  truest! 
These  are  the  ''fruits"  by  which  we  are  told  that 


I 


we  shall  ''know!"     And  once  we  are  thus  brought 
face   to  face   with   these  immortal   triumphs   of 
humanity,  we  find  indeed  that  we  know  this  one 
thing  at  least— that  nothing  can  adequately  ex- 
plain these  realities  but  that  one  holy  spirit  of 
creative  life,  of  which  the  greatest  prophets  have 
told  us  from  the  beginning.     Life  is  at  bottom 
spiritual,  or  it  is  nothing.     In  all  and  through  all 
and  over  all  is  God,  the  Father,  the  Creator,  the 
Over-Soul,  the  Beginning  and  the  End— call  him 
what  you  will!     His  divine  spirit  is  at  once  the 
source  from  which  life  flows,  and  the  sea  toward 
which  it  moves.     It  is  the  power  which  appears 
in  the  physical  universe  as  force  or  energy — it  is 
the  power  which  "wells  up  in  man  in  the  form 
of  consciousness,"  to  quote  the  familiar  words  of 
Herbert  Spencer— it  is  the  power,  unknown  and 
unknowable,   and  yet   so    clearly    known,   which 
builds  the  temples,  teaches  the  prophecies,  chants 
the  songs,   conceives  the  heroisms,   dreams  the 
dreams  and  sees  the  visions,  which  have  glorified, 
and  still  glorify,  the  heart  of  man.     God  is  a  reaHty 
—the  only  reality!     The  soul  is  true— the  only 
truth!    Life  is  spirit— all  spirit  and  only  spirit! 


Such  are  the  two  points  of  view  from  which  men 
have  looked  at  and  interpreted  the  world— the 
material  and  the  spiritual!  And  it  is  obvious, 
is  it  not,   to  which   of  these  two  fundamental 


378 


Is  Death  the  End? 


philosophies  belongs  the  conception  of  mortality, 
and  to  which  the  conception  of  immortality? 
Here  at  last  are  we  face  to  face  with  the  larger  and 
deeper  implications  of  the  problem  which  we  have 
been  discussing  through  all  the  many  pages  of  this 
book.  To  believe  that  death  is  the  end,  is  to 
accept,  whether  we  will  or  no,  the  whole  sum  and 
substance  of  materialism.  To  accept  the  spiritual 
interpretation  of  life  is  at  the  same  time  to  accept 
the  immortal  hope.  These  things  belong  together, 
as  the  part  belongs  to  the  whole  and  the  whole 
to  the  part.  The  final  and  perfect  justification  of 
the  idea  of  immortality  is  its  immediate  kinship 
with  that  great  family  of  ideas  which  constitutes 
the  universe  of  the  spirit.  It  fits  in  with  the 
thought  of  God;  it  matches  the  conception  of  the 
soul;  it  harmonizes  with  the  ideals  of  truth,  good- 
ness, and  beauty ;  it  answers  to  the  noblest  dreams 
and  aspirations  of  the  human  spirit.  Therefore 
and  therewith  is  it  true! 


APPENDIX 


The  more  important  books  referred  to  in  the  text  are  listed, 
herewith,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  may  hke  to  follow  more 
carefully  the  course  of  thought  pursued  in  this  volume. 


Barrett,  W.  F.     Psychical  Research. 

Bergson,  Henri.     Creative  Evolution. 

BiXBY,  James  T.     The  New  World  and  the  New  Thought. 

Brown,  William  Adams.     The  Christian  Hope. 

Dante.     The  Divine  Comedy. 

Darwin,  Charles.     Origin  of  Species. 

The  Descent  of  Man. 

Dickinson,  G.  Lowes.     Is  Immortality  Desirable? 
Dole,  Charles  F.     The  Hope  of  Immortality. 
Drummond,  Henry.     The  Ascent  of  Man. 
Duncan,  R.  K.     The  New  Knowledge. 
Eliot,  Charles  W.     The  Religion  of  the  Future. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo.    Essay  on  Immortality. 
FiSKE,  John.     The  Destiny  of  Man. 
Life  Everlasting. 

Through  Nature  to  God. 

Gordon,  George  A.     Immortality  and  the  New  Theodicy, 
GuRNEY,  Edmund  (etc.)     Phantasms  of  the  Living. 
Haeckel,  Ernst.     The  Riddle  of  the  Universe, 

The  Wonders  of  Life. 

Homer.     Odyssey. 

Huxley,  Thomas.    Evolution  and  Ethics. 

Man's  Place  in  Nature. 

Darwiniana. 

Hyslop,  James.     Science  and  a  Future  Lift. 

379 


f 


380 


Appendix 


Appendix 


381 


James,  William.     Two  Supposed  Objections  to  Human  Immor- 
tality. 

What  Psychical  Research  has  Accomplished,  in  The  Will  to 

Believe. 
Jordan  &  Kellogg.     Evolution  and  A  nimal  Life. 
Lang,    Andrew.     Presidential   Address    before   the   Society  for 

Psychical  Research. 
Le  Conte,  Joseph.     Evolution  and  Its  Relation  to  Religious 

Thought. 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver.     Continuity. 

Life  and  Matter. 

Lotze,  Rudolph  Hermann.     Metaphysics. 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice.    Our  Eternity. 
Martineau,  James.    A  Study  of  Religion. 
Metchnikoff,  Elie.     The  Prolongation  of  Life. 

The  Nature  of  Man. 

Mill,  John  Stuart.     Theism,  Part  IIL 

Milton,  John.    Paradise  Lost. 

MiJNSTERBERG,  HuGO.     The  Eternal  Life. 

Myers,  Frederick.    Human  Personality  and  its  Survival  after 

Bodily  Death. 
OsLER,  William.     Science  and  Immortality. 
OsTWALD,  WiLHELM.     Individuality  and  Immortality. 
Parker,  Theodore.    A  Sermon  on  the  Immortal  Life. 
Plato.    Apology. 

Crito. 

Phcedo. 

Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

RoYCE,  JosiAH.     The  Conception  of  Immortality. 

The  World  and  the  Individual. 

Savage,  Minot  J.    Life  Beyond  Death. 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur.     The  World  As  Will. 
Spencer,  Herbert.     First  Principles. 

Principles  of  Biology. 

Sunderland,  J.  T.     The  Spark  in  the  Clod. 
Swendenborg,  Emanuel.     Heaven  and  Hell. 
Thomson,  W.  H.     Brain  and  Personality. 
Wallace,  Alfred  Russel.     Darwinism. 

Social  Environment  and  Moral  Progress. 

Wells,  H.  G.     First  and  Last  Things. 


II 


*  • 


To  these  may  be  added  the  following  books  as  important  dis- 
cussions of  the  general  problem  of  immortality. 

Abbott,  Lyman.     Evolution  and  Immortality,  in  The  Theology  oj 
an  Evolutionist. 

The  Other  Room. 

Alger,  William  R.     Critical  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Future 

Life. 
Barrett,  W.  F.     On  the  Threshold  of  a  New  World  of  Thought. 
Bjorklund,  Gustaf.     Death  and  Resurrection. 
Calthrop,  Samuel  R.     Immortality,  in  God  and  His  World. 
Crothers,  Samuel  M.     The  Endless  Life. 
Dahle,  Lars  Nielsen.     Life  After  Death. 
Doan,  Frank  C.     Life  Everlasting,  in  Religion  and  the  Modern 

Mind. 
Farrar,  James.     The  Eternal  Hope. 

Mercy  and  Judgment.  *' \  \      »    I  iv.'  .""• 

Fechner,  Gustav  THEOoftOR..  •'  Lifa  kf^r'jDetitj^l: 
FosDiCK,  Harry.     The  Assurance  of  Immortality. 
Gordon,  George  A.  ;  7ih^,\\^ltiffS9tollmhiortdlzly.r  \  .• 
Haynes,  E.  S.  p.     TniSmdfan'-hi^ov4l'In[r^tality!{ 
Howison,  George  Holmes.    Human  Immortality,  in  The  Limits 

of  Evolution.  •        I    1'",    l'*       ',     •  •.    ^    ^» 

Huntington,  W.  R.     A.  r^nl^i^Qfia^^  immc/riallt'y.    V 
Jaines,  William.     Final  Impressions  of  a  Psychical  Researcher, 

in  Memories  and  Studies. 
Jefferson,  Charles  E.     Why  We  may  Believe  in  Life  after 

Death. 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver.     Science  and  Immortality. 

The  Survival  of  Man. 

McCoNNELL,  Samuel  D.     The  Evolution  of  Immortality. 

Moore,  George  F.     Metempsychosis. 

Myers,  Frederick.     Science  and  a  Future  Life. 

Palmer,  George  H.     Intimations  of  Immortality  in  the  Sonnets 

of  William  Shakespeare. 
Parker,  Theodore.     A  Discourse  of  Religion,  Book  I,  Chapter  vi. 
The  Function  a?id  Influence  of  the  Idea  of  Immortal  Life,  in 

Theism,  Atheism,  and  the  Popular  Theology. 


i 


oi^i. 


382 


Appendix 


PoDMORE,  F.     Modern  Spiritualism. 

Apparitions  and  Thought  Transference. 

Row,  Charles  Augustus,     Future  Retribution. 
Salmond,  S.  D.  F.     The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Immortality. 
Savage,  Minot  J.     Can  Telepathy  Explain? 

The  Passing  and  Permanent  in  Religion  (Chapters  xi-xiii.). 

Shaler,  Nathaniel  S.     The  Individual. 
Smyth,  Newman.     Modern  Belief  in  Immortality. 

The  Place  of  Death  in  Evolution. 

Welldon,  James  E.  C.     The  Hope  of  Immortality. 


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